A    HISTORY 


OF 


GREEK    LITERATURE. 


A    COMPANION    VOLUME. 


A  HISTORY  OF  ROMAN  LITERATURE: 

From  the  Earliest  Period  to  the  Times  op  the  Antonines. 

BY 

CHARLES   THOMAS   CRUTTWELL,   M.A., 

FELLOW  OP  MERTON  COLLEGE,  OXFORD;  HEAD  MASTER  OP 
MALVERN   COLLEGE. 

Crown  8to,  cloth,  $2.50. 

"  Mr.  CRUTTWELL  has  done  a  real  service  to  all  Students  of 
the  Latin  Language  and  Literature.  .  .  Pull  of  good  scholar- 
ship and  good  criticiam."— ^^/ie?i05Mm. 

"A  most  serviceable — indeed  indispensable— guide  for  the 
Student.  .  .  .  The  '  general  reader'  will  be  both  charmed 
and  instructed."— /Sa^f/^rfay  Review. 


A  -HISTORY    OF 

GREEK    LITERATURE:' 

FROM 
TO 


FRANK    BYRON    JEVONS,    M.A., 

TUTOR  IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  DURHAM. 


NEW  YORK: 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS. 

1904 


fHcu 


O 


o 


v^ 


V 


mj(\) 


TO 


THE  VENERABLE  H.  W.  W ATKINS,  D.D., 

CANON    AND   ARCHDEACON   OF   DURHAM, 
PROrESSOR   OF    HEBREW    IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   DURHAM, 

Zbis  movn 

IS     GRATEFULLY     INSCRIBED 


THE  AUTHOR. 


210S66 


PREFACE. 


Tms,  like  the  preceding  volume  in  this  series,  "is 
designed  mainly  for  Students  at  our  Ur.iTersities  and 
Public  Schools,  and  for  such  as  are  preparing  for  the 
Indian  Civil  Service  or  other  advanced  Examinations." 
But  it  is  also  intended  to  be  intelligible,  and,  it  is  hoped, 
will  be  found  interesting  to  those  who  know  no  Greek. 
With  this  purpose,  Greek  and  all  points  involving  Greek 
scholarship  have  been  relegated  to  the  Notes  and  Appen- 
dices. 

A  list  of  the  works  consulted  and  utilised  in  writing 
this  book  would  occupy  many  pages.  To  note  on  each 
page,  in  the  German  fashion,  every  obligation  and  refer- 
ence would  swell  the  work  to  twice  its  present  size.  I 
must  therefore  content  myself  with  saying  that  I  have 
endeavoured  to  draw  >  n  all  the  best  treatises  on  the  sub- 
ject in  English,  French,  and  German.  Much,  especially 
of  the  German  work,  deals  with  isolated  points  :  the  prin- 
ciples which  determined  the  growth  of  Greek  literature 


VUl  PREFACE. 

have  been  comparatively  neglected  by  previous  writers 
The  present  effort  may,  I  hope,  contribute  towards  remedy 
ing  this  neglect. 

I  am  indebted  for  valuable  guidance  to  my  former 
tutor,  H.  Eichards,  Esq.,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  Wadham  Col- 
lege, Oxford,  and  to  J.  T.  Danson,  Esq.,  F.S.A. 

F.  B.  J. 


University  College,  Ddbhau, 
Julg  1886. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


PAOl 


Difference  between  classical  period  and  later  periods  of  Greek  litera- 
ture— Greek  literature  the  proper  introduction  to  literature 
generally — Classical  period  divisible  into  poetry  (epic,  lyric, 
and  dramatic)  and  prose  (history,  oratory,  and  philosophy)         .         I 


PAET  I. 
EPIC,  LYKIC,  AND   THE  DEAMA, 


BOOK  I.— EPIC  POETRY. 


CHAPTER  L 

THE  ILIAD. 

Its  background — Three  ways  of  painting  in  a  background — Skill  of 
Homer — The  plot — Its  unity  and  interconnection — Artistic  dis- 
posal of  side-issues   .........         7 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  ODYSSEY. 

Its     modern     popularity  —  Unity  —  Telemachia  —  Mdrchen  —  The 

"kernel" — The  climax — Transformation  of  Odysseus        .         .       17 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION. 

The  early  Separatists — Modern  Chorizontes — ^Wolf — Commission  of 
Pisistrattis  —  Hermann  —  Lachmann  —  Diaskeuasts  —  Grote — 
Paley — Conclusion 25 


CONTENTS. 


PAOB 


Appbndix. — Reading,  Writing,  and  Publication  in  Classical  Greek 
Times: — Origin  of  writing — Date  of  Greek  alphabet — Of  a  read- 
ing public  in  Greece — Recitation,  publication — Homeridae         .       4I 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  EPIC  CYCLE. 

Proclua — His  summary  of  the  Cypria,  the  jEthiopis,  Little  Iliad,  th 

Sack  of  Troy,  the  Return,  Telegonia — Theban  epics    ...       54 

Appendix. — Relation  of  the  Epic  Cycle  to  Homer  : — Homer  and  the 
cycle — Proclus'  summary  and  the  original  poems— Cyclics 
avoid  Homer — Borrow  inspiration — Date  what  they  imitate       .       61 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  HOMERIC  HYMNS. 

Their  nature — The  proems  of  rhapsodists — The  longer  hymns — Other 
Homeric  poems — Margites — Batrackomyomachia,  &c. — Homeric 
epigrams 69 

CHAPTER  VI. 

HESIOD  AND  HESIODIC  POETRY. 

Difference  between  Hesiod  and  Homer — Hesiod  didactic — Nature 
of  didactic  poetry — Life  of  Hesiod — Merit  of  his  work —  Works 
and  Days —  Thcogony  and  its  origin — Shield  of  Heracles  and  lost 
works — Genealogical  poems 77 

CHAPTER  VII. 

OTHER  EPIC  POETS  AND   OTHER  WRITERS  OF  HEXAMETERS. 

Peisander — Panyasis — Antimachus  of  Colophon — Choerilus  of  Samos 
— Arimaspeia  of  Aristeas — Orphic  poets — Verse  philosophers — 
Slow  development  of  prose — Connection  between  philosophy  and 
poetry — Xenophanes — Parmenides  — Empedocles       ,        ,        .       88 


BOOK  IL— LYRIC  POETRY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  ELEGIAC  AND   IAMBIC  POETS. 

Rise  of  lyric — Its  nature  and  difference  from  epic  and  from  modem 
lyric — Its  germs — Songs  of  the  people^Foreign  elements — 
Elegiac,  iambic,  and  melic — Elegy — Callinus — Archilochus — 
Simonides— Tyrtaeus — Mimnermus — Solon         ....      106 


CONTENTS.  XI 

CHAPTER  II. 

PAGB 

LYRIC   POETRY  :   MELIC. 

Nature  of  inelic — Four  periods  in  its  history — Terpander,  Clonas, 
and  Thaletas — Terpander's  extension  of  the  uome — Alcman — 
Parthenia — Arion — The  dithyramb  .         .         .         ,         .         .121 

CHAPTER  III. 

MELIC   POETRY  :     ALCEUS  AND    SAPPHO. 

Life  of  Alcseus — Political  verses — Estimate  of  antiquity — Drinking- 
songs — His  work  as  a  whole — Sappho — Her  life — Her  excellence 
and  style — Damophila — Erinna — Stesichorus    ,         .         .         .13c 

CHAPTER  IV. 

ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  WRITERS  CONTINUED. 

The  Theognidea — Life  of  Theognis — His  political,  moral,  and  social 
views  —  Demodocus  —  Phocylides  —  Spurious  Phocylidea — Hip- 
pouax — Other  writers  of  elegiacs  or  iambics        .         .        .         .147 

CHAPTER  V. 

MELIC    AT    COURT. 

Ibycus — His  odes  choral — Influence  of  tyranny  and  democracy  on 
literature — Anacreon  —  Simonides  —  Dithyramb  —  Encomia — 
Payment  for  poetry  —  Threni  —  Epigram  —  Bacchylides  and 
Others 155 

CHAPTER  VL 

PINDAR. 

Early  life  —  Tenth  Pythian  —  Pythian  games  —  Sixth  Pythian — 
Twelfth  Pythian— Pindar  and  Athens — Eleventh  Olympian — 
Fifth  Nemean — Second  Period — Fourth  Pythian — Third  Period 
— Relation  of  choral  lyric  to  previous  and  subsequent  kinds  of 
poetry — Decay  of  choral  lyric •        .170 


BOOK  III.— THE  DRAMA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

EARLY  TRAGEDY. 

Origin  of  Tragedy — Thespis — Pratinas — Satyric  drama — TheCyclopi 

— Aristias — Phrynichus — Phenician  Women — Choerilus      .         .183 

Appendix. — Metre,  Dialect,  and  Divisions  of  Tragedy       .        .        .189 


331  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IL 

FAOB 

iESCHYLUS. 

Influence  of  religion — Visit  to  Sicily — Its  cause — His  pcHtics — The 
Eumenides — The  Persians — Suppliants — The  Seven — Prometheui 
Bound — Characters — Clytemestra — Chorus  in  ^schylua — Style 
— Fragments — "School "of  JSschylus — Euphorion — Astydamas     192 

CHAPTER  IIL 

SOPHOCLES. 

Life — Herodotus — Fatalism  and  "irony  of  Sophocles" — Character- 
drawing — The  chorus — Style— Lost  plays  and  fragments — 
"  School  "  of  Sophocles  —  Ion  —  Neophron —  Carcinus  and  his 
**  school "...........     206 

CHAPTER  IV. 

EURIPIDES. 

Life  and  plays — Popularity — Transitional  character  of  his  work — 
Consequent  defects^ — Prologue  and  deus  ex  machind — Chorus — 
Character-drawing — Style — Fraginents — "  School  " — Achaeus, 
Agathon — "  Reading  tragedians  " — Decay  of  tragedy        .         .    22C 

CHAPTER  V. 

* 

COMEDY  :    ORIGIN   AND  GROWTH. 

Worship  of  Dionysius  and  Phallica — Mimetic  dances — Megara — 
Mseson  and  Susarion — Sicilian  comedy  —  Epicharmus — Hebe's 
Weddiny — Origin  of  Sicilian  comedy — Influence  of  Epicharmus 
on  Attic  comedy — Sophrou  and  his  mimes  .        •        •        .     234 

CHAPTER  VL 

THE   OLD    COMEDY. 

The  old,  the  middle,  and  the  new — Magnes — Crates — Cratinus — 
Pherecrates — Eupolis,  his  relations  with  Aristophanes — His 
plays  and  character — Phrynichus,  Plato,  and  others  .         .        .     243 

CHAPTER  VIL 

ARISTOPHANES. 

Two  periods  of  Aristophanes'  work — The  Babylonians — The  Aehar- 
nians — The  Knights  and  Cleon — The  patriotism  of  Aristophanes 
— The  influence  of  comedy  on  politics — The  Clouds  and  Socrates 
— Aristophanes  on  philosophy — His  discontent  with  the  present — 


CONTENTS.  XIU 

PAGB 

Unsatisfactory  text  of  the  Clouds — The  real  nature  of  the  attack 
on  Socrates — The  Wasps  and  its  construction — Change  in  Aris- 
tophanes' attitude — The  Peace — The  Birds  and  its  beauty — Lost 
plays — Lysistrata   and    2'hesmophoriazusce — Euripides   and    the 

Frogs — Ecclesiaznsce — Plutus — Lost  plays 253 

Appendix — A.  The  Wasps .277 

B.  The  Parabasis •        .        .278 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

MIDDLE  COMEDY. 

Old  and  middle  comedy — Reason  of  their  difference — Disappearance 
of  the  chorus — Reason  thereof — Plot  in  old,  middle,  and  new — 
Characters — Sources  of  our  information — Alexis — Antiphanes — 
Anaxandrides — Eubulus — Other  comedians       ....    279 


PAKT  II. 
HISTORY,  ORATORY,  AND  PHILOSOPHY. 


BOOK  I.— HISTORY. 


CHAPTER  L 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  PROSE. 

Prose  literature  invented  in  Miletus — Cadmus  and  Pherecydes — The 
logographers — Hecatseus — Dionysius  of  Miletus — Xanthus  — 
Hippocrates — His  life  and  works         ......     297 

CHAPTER   IL 

HERODOTUS. 

His  date  and  life — Object  of  his  travels — Outline  of  his  History- 
Intended  for  recitation — Incomplete — The  Assyrian  history — 
Unity  of  his  work — Its  national  sentiment — Nemesis  his  philo- 
sophy of  history — His  credulity,  capacity,  honesty,  means  of 
information 306 

CHAPTER   IIL 

THUCYDIDES. 

Life — Importance  of  the  Peloponnesian  war — Its  interest — Its  moral 
— The  object  of  Thucydides — His  "  positive  "  character — His 
annaiistic  method — His  literary  genius — Literary  defects  and 
their  causes — Compared  with  Tacitus         .....    327 


siv  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

9Aat 

XENOPHON. 

Life —Works, historical,  philosophical,  and  miscellaneous — Anabasis — 
Its  authorship — Hellenics — Its  defects,  and  their  various  explana^ 
tions— Xenophon  and  Thucydides — Cyropcedia — Other  historical 
and  miscellaneous  works — Object  of  the  philosophical  works — 
Xenophon  and  Flato 348 

CHAPTER  V. 

OTHER  HISTORIANS. 

Ctesias — His  relation    to  Herodotus — Theopompus — Ephorus  — 

Others .,        .    36a 


BOOK  II.— ORATORY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  RHETORIC  AND  THE  FIRST  LOGOGRAPHERg, 

Eloquence  and  its  development  into  oratory — The  Sophists — Pro- 
tagoras— Sicilian  rhetoric  :  Corax  and  Tisias — Gorgias — The 
logographers  and  their  services — Antiphon — His  life — Imma- 
turity— The  Tetralogies — The  "  severe  "  style — His  merits         .     367 

CHAPTER  11. 

PRACTICAL  ORATORY:  ANDOCIDES  AND  LYSIAS. 

A.ndocides— His  life — Not  a  rhetorician — His  weaknesses  and  his 
strength — The  four  surviving  speeches — Lysias — His  life — 
Speeches,  spurious,  epideictic,  deliberative,  and  forensic — Ethos 
—  Plain  style  —  Grace  —  Thrasymachus,  Theodorus,  Euenus, 
Critias 379 

CHAPTER  III. 

EPIDEICTIC  RHETORIC  AND  THE  TRANSITION. 

Isocrates — A  logographer  then  a  Sophist — Pan-Hellenism — Styla 
epideictic — Hiatus  avoided — Smoothness — Antisthenes — Alci- 
damus— Polycrates — Zoilus  the  Homeromastix — Anaximenes — 
Isseus — His  influence  on  Demosthenes        ,        ,        .        .        .     39J 


CONTENTS.  XV 

CHAPTER  IV. 

PAGE 

DEMOSTHENES  :  FIRST  PERIOD. 

Relation  of  Demosthenes  to  earlier  oratory  and  to  the  culture  of  hia 
time — His  character  and  early  life — His  youthful  exaggeration — 
Want  of  self-control — Imitation — Lack  of  artistic  sense  and  ethos    404 

CHAPTER  V. 

DEMOSTHENES:  SECOND   PERIOD. 

His  excessive  argumentation — His  lighter  qualities — The  speech  for 
Phormio  —  Political  speeches  —  Constitutional  speeches  —  The 
Demegories —  Their  ethos — The  speech  against  Midias — On  the 
Embassy 412 

CHAPTER  VI. 

DEMOSTHENES  :   THIRD  PERIOD— SPEECH  OF  THE  CROWN. 

Points  at  issue  between  ^schines  and  Ctesiphon — The  speech  as 
delivered  and  as  we  have  it — Demosthenes'  power  of  language — 
His  rhythm — His  intellectual  superiority — His  morality — The 
Harpalus  affair — Death  of  Demosthenes 425 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  CONTEMPORARIES  OF  DEMOSTHENES  :  THE  ANTI-MACEDONIAN 

PARTY. 

Divisions  in  the  Anti-Macedonian  party — Hyperides — His  life  and 
character — His  grace  and  charm — Speech  for  Euxenippus — For 
Lycophron — Discovery  in  Egypt  of  fragments  of  Hyperides — 
Speech  against  Demosthenes — Funeral  oration  — Lycurgus — 
Hegesippus  and  the  speech  on  the  Halonnesus — Polyeuctus       .     436 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

^SCHINES  AND  THE  ORATORS  OF  THE  MACEDONIAN  PARTY. 

^schines — Life — Speeches — ^schines  and  Demosthenes  compared 
and  contrasted — Demades — Aristogiton — Minor  orators — The 
decline  of  oratory — Its  causes — A  development  of  pre-existing 
tendencies 45a 


XVI  CONTENTS. 


BOOK  III.— PHILOSOPHY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAOI 

PLATO  AND  THE  PHILOSOPHERS   BEFORE  HIM. 

Anaximander,  Anaximenes,  and  Heraclitus — Zeno — Anaxagnras  — 
Other  philosophers — Plato — Life — Acquaintance  with  Socrates 
— Travels — Why  he  adopted  the  form  of  dialogue — Its  place  in 
Greek  literature  —  His  style,  diction,  structure  of  sentence, 
rhythm — Its  affinity  with  poetry  and  with  comedy — Aristotle 
on  Plato's  literary  qualities — Authenticity  of  the  works  ascribed 
to  Plato 465 


CONCLUSION, 

The  limits  of  the  range  of  thought — Physical  conditions — Race  quali- 
ties— Oral  communication  of  Greek  literature — Political  and 
social  conditions— Influence  of  language     .  .        .     484 


^^  Of   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


A 

HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURK 


INTRODUCTORY, 

Classical   Greek   Literature   begins   with   Homer,   and  ends 

practically,  if  not  precisely,  with  the  death  of  Demosthenes. 
During  this  period  Greece  was  free.  With  the  loss  of  liberty, 
literature  underwent  a  change.  Greece  ceased  to  produce  men 
of  genius,  and  this  constitutes  one  difference  between  the  classi- 
cal and  later  periods.  A  second  great  difference  is  that  whereas 
the  literature  of  the  classical  period  was  written  not  only  by 
Greeks,  but  for  Greeks,  later  literature  was  cosmopolitan  ;  and 
to  this  change  in  the  literature  corresponds  the  change  in  the 
language,  which  from  pure  Greek  became  Hellenistic  Greek. 
The  earliest  period  of  Greek  literature  is,  then,  classical  because 
it  is  the  work  of  genius,  and  is  due  solely  to  Greek  genius.  It 
reflects  Greek  life  and  expresses  Greek  thoughts  alone,  and, 
like  the  language  in  which  it  is  clad,  contains  no  foreign 
elements. 

Classical  Greek  literature  is  the  proper  introduction  to  litera- 
ture generally,  because  in  it  the  laws  which  determined  its 
development  are  simple,  and  can  be  easily  traced.  It  was  pure 
and  original,  and  its  development,  imlike  that  of  subsequent 
.literatures,  was  not  complicated  by  the  influence  of  a  foreign 
literature.  Further,  the  various  kinds  of  literature,  poetry  and 
prose,  epic,  lyric,  and  the  drama,  history,  philosophy,  and 
oratory,  not  only  remained  true,  each  to  its  own  type,  but  on 
the  whole  they  developed  in  orderly  succession.  This  was 
because  they  were  the  work  of  different  members  of  the  Greek 
race,  whose  latent  literary  tendencies  required  different  political 
and  social  conditions  to  draw  them  out.  They  were  evoked  T)ne 
after  the  other  by  political  and  social  changes  ;  and  so  the  stages 


2  mSTOEY    OF   GREEK    LITERATURE. 

in  the  development  of  literature  correspond  with  those  of  the 
nation's  life.  The  growth  of  Epic  poetry,  the  earliest  form  of 
the  literature  wliich  has  bequeathed  remains  to  us,  was  favoured 
by  a  stage  of  civilisation  in  which  patriarchal  monarchy  formed 
the  political  machinery,  and  family  life  furnished  the  society 
and  the  literary  public.  Lyric,  the  next  branch  of  literature, 
found  favouring  conditions  in  the  aristocracies  which  succeeded 
to  monarchy,  and  in  which  the  social  communion  of  the  pri- 
vileged  class  took  the  place  of  family  life,  and  provided  a  new 
public  for  literature.  The  Drama  was  designed  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  large  numbers  of  persons,  and  was  a  response  to  the 
demands  of  democracy.  From  this  time  on,  literature  no  longer 
found  its  home  in  the  halls  of  chieftains,  or  its  audience  in  the 
social  meetings  of  the  few ;  but  when  the  state  came  to  consist 
of  the  whole  of  the  citizens,  literature  became  united  with  the 
life  of  the  state  as  a  whole,  and  thenceforward  was  but  one  of 
the  ways  in  which  that  life  expressed  itself.  Literary  men  were 
not  a  class  distinguished  by  their  profession  from  the  rest  of  the 
community,  nor  was  literature  a  thing  apart  from  the  practical 
matters  of  life.  The  Orators  were  active  politicians  or  men  of 
law ;  and  their  speeches  were  not  literary  displays,  but  had  a 
practical  object,  to  turn  the  vote  of  the  Assembly,  or  to  gain  a 
verdict.  History  was  the  record  of  a  contemporary  war,  or  of  a 
war  which  had  occurred  in  the  previous  generation.  Philosophy 
was  but  a  picture  in  words  of  the  conversations  between  culti- 
vated Greeks  on  the  great  problems  of  life.  The  drama  was 
not  a  mere  literary  entertainment :  it  was  an  act  of  common 
worship,  in  which  the  genius  of  man  was  devoted  to  the  glory 
of  the  gods. 

In  this  book  we  shall  follow  the  divisions  into  which  Greek 
literature  naturally  falls,  and  shall  complete  our  survey  of  each 
branch  of  literature  before  proceeding  to  another.  This  method 
is  not  absolutely  chronological,  for  the  divisions  overlap  to  a 
certain  extent ;  but  it  gives  a  simpler  account,  and  in  reality  a 
truer  view  of  the  history,  than  we  should  obtain  by  following 
out  chronological  distinctions  to  the  uttermost.  Our  division 
then  wiU  be  as  follows : — In  the  fiBst  place,  as  the  rise  of  poetry 
preceded  that  of  prose,  we  shall  divide  the  history  of  Greek 
literature  into  two  parts,  the  first  containing  the  history  of 
poetry,  the  second  of  prose.  Then  the  first  part  wiU  fall  into 
three  divisions — (i.)  Epic;  (2.)  Lyric;  (3.) The  Drama:  and  the 
second  will  also  fall  into  three  divisions — (i.)  History;  (2.) 
Philosophy;  (3.)  Oratory. 

Our  account  of  Epic  poetry  will  begin  with  Homer.     Other 


INTRODUCTORY.  3 

poets  must  have  lived  before  Homer,  and  must  have  carried  the 
development  of  poetry  to  a  considerable  height  before  such 
works  as  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  could  have  been  composed. 
But  as  there  is  not  a  vestige  of  this  pre-Homeric  poetry  left,  we 
shall  proceed  at  once  to  Homer ;  and  before  considering  the 
question  whether  there  was  such  a  person  as  Homer,  we  must 
try  to  gain  some  idea  of  what  there  is  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
which  places  them  among  the  world's  greatest  literary  treasures, 
and  which  could  make  Keats,  who  oidy  knew  the  poems  through 
an  inferior  English  version,  say  on  first  looking  into  Chapman's 
Homer — 

•*  Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skiea 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken  ; 
Or  like  stout  Cortez — when  with  eagle  eyea 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific,  and  all  his  men 
Looked  at  each  other  with  a  wild  BuruuM— > 
Silent  upon  a  peak  in  Darieo." 


.♦• 


part  J* 

EPIC  AND   LYRIC  POETRY f 
THE  DRAMA. 


BOOK  I. 

EPIC    POETRY. 


CHAPTER  L 

THE  ILIAD. 

Whatbvbr  may  have  been  the  authorship,  origin,  original  foim, 
and  date  of  the  Homeric  poems,  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  in 
their  present  form  that  they  have  commanded  the  admiration 
of  men  for  more  than  two  thousand  years,  have  been  the  model 
for  epic  poetry,  the  inspiration  of  poets  of  all  kinds,  and  have 
made  the  name  of  Homer  greater  than  any  name  in  literature. 
Therefore,  before  dissecting  the  poems  of  Homer,  or  rather  vivi- 
secting them,  for  they  yet  live,  let  us  admire  the  beauty  of 
their  form,  the  firmness  of  their  outlines,  the  purity  of  their 
Greek  features,  and  the  soul  vv^hich  gives  expression  to  them. 
And  this  we  may  do  without  pre-judging  any  of  the  questions 
to  which  these  poems  have  given  rise ;  for  those  who  advocate 
the  hypothesis  of  several  authors  are  as  warm  in  the  praise  of 
our  existing  Homer,  as  are  the  supporters  of  Homer's  undivided 
authorship.  Indeed,  the  example  of  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon 
and  some  of  our  own  cathedrals  shows  that  a  work  of  art  may 
possess  unity  of  design  and  harmony  in  details,  and  yet  be  the 
work  of  not  one  artist,  but  several. 

Confining  ourselves  in  this  chapter  to  the  Iliad,  let  us  first 
admire  the  skill  with  which  the  background  is  painted  in. 
The  subject  of  the  Iliad,  the  wrath  of  Achilles  and  its  conse- 
quences, is  but  an  incident  in  the  story  of  the  Trojan  war. 
Achilles  and  Agamemnon  quarrelled  before  the  walls  of  Troy, 
as  we  are  informed  at  the  beginning  of  the  first  book ;  but  the 
reader  has  to  be  informed  how  it  came  about  that  Achilles  and 
Agamemnon  were  besieging  Troy,  and  this  is  the  story  of  the 
Trojan  war,  which  is  presupposed  by  and  forms  the  background 


8  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

of  tte  Hiad.  In  the  same  way  every  plot,  whether  of  an  epic, 
or  a  drama,  or  a  novel,  presupposes  a  state  of  things  existing 
before  the  action  begins;  and  the  way  in  which  the  author 
contrives  to  acquaint  the  reader  with  this  state  of  things,  in 
other  words  to  paint  in  the  background,  gives  us  a  test  of  his 
skill. 

1.  The  simplest  and  most  inartistic  way  is  that  adopted  by 
Euripides  in  many  of  his  plays.  Before  the  drama  begins,  one 
of  the  characters,  or  even  a  figure  who  does  not  appear  in  the 
play  itself,  comes  on  the  stage,  and,  speaking  to  the  audience, 
tells  them  what  they  have  to  imagine  in  order  to  understand 
what  is  going  to  be  done  on  the  stage.  This  is  the  most  in- 
artistic, because  the  pleasure  one  gets  from  seeing  a  play  depends 
on  the  illusion — depends,  that  is  to  say,  on  our  believing  for  the 
time  that  what  we  see  performed  before  us  is  real :  and  in  the 
prologues  of  Euripides  the  author  practically  comes  forward  and 
disenchants  us  by  warning  us  that  what  is  going  to  come  is  only 
a  play.  In  a  novel,  too,  the  author  may  begin  at  the  beginning 
and  tell  us  methodically  from  point  to  point  all  that  his  story 
presupposes  ;  and  then,  having  got  this  preliminary  matter  out 
of  the  way,  proceed  with  his  real  subject.  But  this  method  is 
usually  repulsive  to  the  reader,  whose  interest  is  not  awakened, 
and  he  puts  down  the  book. 

2.  The  next  and  more  usual  way  of  painting  in  the  background 
is  to  begin  with  the  real  subject,  at  the  point  the  author  thinks 
most  attractive ;  and  then,  after  having  gained  the  reader's 
attention,  to  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  things  and  explain 
the  circumstances  in  which  his  characters  find  themselves. 
This  is  more  artistic  than  the  first  way,  though  how  much 
more  depends  on  the  artist.  It  may  be  done  clumsily,  the 
author  without  any  excuse  simply  saying  in  effect,  "  Now  let  us 
retrace  our  steps,  and  see  how  this  came  about ; "  or  it  may 
be  done  more  skilfully,  as  when  the  author  arranges  things  so 
that  one  of  the  characters  naturally  relates  the  antecedent  cir- 
cumstances for  the  benefit  of  another  character.  Thus,  in  the 
^neid,  Virgil  begins  with  a  storm  at  sea  which  throws  ^iieas 
on  the  coast  of  Carthage ;  and  the  Queen  of  Carthage  naturally 
wishes  to  know  the  liistory  of  the  stranger,  who  then  relates  at 
great  length  all  that  is  necessary  for  the  reader  to  know  in 
order  to  comprehend  the  story  of  the  ^neid.  Even  here  there 
are  degrees  of  skill,  for  in  some  cases  it  is  evident  that  the 
antecedent  state  of  things  is  narrated  by  one  character  to 
another,  not  in  the  least  because  he  would  do  so  in  real  life,  but 
because  the  information  must  be  given  to  the  reader  somehow. 


EPIC  poetry:  the  iliad.  9 

To  make  the  characters  talk  at  the  reader  in  this  way  is  had 

workmanship. 

3.  There  is  yet  a  third  way  of  painting  in  the  hackground.  It 
consists  in  making  the  plot  itself  disclose  what  it  presupposes, 
in  not  telling  the  reader,  but  allowing  him  to  infer  how  what 
he  sees  has  come  about.  This  is  the  best  way,  not  because  it 
is  most  natural,  but  because  it  most  resembles  nature.  It  is 
not  the  method  which  most  naturally  suggests  itself  to  the 
author  ;  but  it  is  the  way  in  which  the  spectator  of  a  scene  in 
real  life,  enacted  by  people  unknown  to  him,  gains  the  know- 
ledge necessary  for  a  comprehension  of  the  scene.  This,  as  it 
is  the  best,  is  also  the  most  difficult  method.  To  construct 
scenes  which  shall  be  necessary  to  the  plot,  and  yet  at  the 
same  time  shall  serve  the  purpose  of  conveying  information  to 
the  reader,  demands  great  power  in  the  artist. 

It  is  the  third  method,  needless  to  say,  which  is  acted  on  in 
the  Iliad.  At  the  beginning  of  the  epic  we  are  simply  told 
that  Achilles  and  Agamemnon,  being  Achseans,  quarrelled  about 
a  captive,  BriseTs.  That  they  were  at  the  time  beleaguering 
Troy,  we  incidentally  learn  from  the  words  of  Briseiis'  father, 
wno  prays  that  the  Achaeans  may  succeed  in  capturing  Troy,  if 
only  they  will  restore  him  his  daughter.  Why  the  Achaeans 
are  besieging  Troy  we  are  not  formally  told,  but  some  light  is 
given  us  when,  in  the  heat  of  the  angry  quarrel,  Achilles  says 
he  is  here  for  no  advantage  of  his  own,  but  of  Menelaus  and 
Agamemnon,  to  gain  recompense  for  them.  Evidently,  then, 
the  two  sons  of  Atreus  are  besieging  Troy  to  right  some  wrong 
they  have  suffered,  and  Achilles  and  others  are  there  to  help 
them.  The  hint  thus  afforded  is  confirmed,  and  the  information 
developed,  when  in  the  first  engagement  we  observe  Menelaus 
single  out  one  of  the  Trojan  warriors  and  challenge  him  to 
the  fight,  with  the  remark,  "  Thou  mayst  see  what  sort  of 
warrior  is  he  whose  lovely  wife  thou  hast."  Then  during  the 
preparations  for  the  duel,  the  cause  of  the  Trojan  war,  the 
carrying  oflf  of  Helen  by  Paris,  naturally  comes  out ;  and  the 
picture  of  the  state  of  things  presupposed  is  completed  by  the 
appearance  of  Helen  herself. 

Meanwhile,  in  other  respects  the  setting  of  the  scene  has 
been  proceeded  with.  The  forces  on  both  sides  are  mustered 
before  our  eyes,  and  we  discover  that  the  siege  has  endured  for 
full  nine  years.  But  this  information  is  not  conveyed  directly 
to,  nor  by  talking  at,  the  reader  :  it  comes  out  in  the  necessary 
course  of  the  action.  The  general  attack,  which  Agamemnon 
has  been  delusively  encouraged  by  Zeus  to  deliver,  affords  a 


10  HISTORY   OF   GREEK   LITERATURE. 

natural  opportunity  for  giving  a  list  of  the  Achseans  who  took 
part  in  this  great  war,  and  of  their  opponents.  The  same  inci- 
dent, too,  is  utilised  as  a  means  of  allowing  the  reader  to  dis- 
cover the  length  of  time  which  the  siege  has  lasted,  and  the 
hardships  it  has  entailed.  Before  venturing  to  make  a  move- 
ment of  such  importance,  Agamemnon  resolves  to  try  a  ruse 
and  prove  his  army's  mettle  hy  proposing  to  abandon  the  siege, 
inasmuch  as  nine  years  have  been  fruitlessly  spent  on  it.  The 
readiness  which  the  people  show  in  accepting  the  offer  demon- 
strates the  sufferings  they  had  undergone,  and  the  omen  of  the 
sparrow  and  her  eight  young  ones  devoured  by  a  serpent,  an 
omen  boding  the  capture  of  Troy  after  nine  years'  siege,  further 
impresses  the  reader  with  the  number  of  the  years. 

There  remains  yet  one  more  point  to  be  noticed  here  before 
we  dismiss  the  subject  of  the  skiU  with  which  Homer  paints  in 
his  background.  It  is  a  point  of  much  importance,  and  has 
been  sometimes  overlooked.  In  the  fighting  which  followed 
on  the  violation  of  the  truce,  and  in  which  Diomede  displayed 
his  valour,  when  the  Achseans  are  wavering,  Here  upbraids 
them  thus  : — "  Fie  upon  you !  .  .  .  "UTiile  yet  noble  Achilles 
entered  continually  into  battle,  then  issued  not  the  Trojans  even 
from  the  Dardanian  gate ;  for  they  had  dread  of  his  terrible 
spear."  ^  This  passage,  which  is  corroborated  by  others  (v.  788, 
ix.  352,  XV.  721),  shows  that  we  are  to  suppose  the  Trojans  as 
confined  to  their  lines  for  the  first  nine  years.  Now  that 
Achilles  is  no  longer  against  them,  they  venture  forth  :  and  this 
is  important,  not  only  because  occurring,  as  the  first  passage 
does,  in  a  book  devoted  to  the  prowess  of  Diomede,  it  keeps 
the  attention  of  the  reader  to  the  absence  of  Achilles  and  the 
consequences  of  his  absence,  but  also  because,  if  we  overlook 
this  aspect  of  the  circumstances  preceding  the  action  of  the 
Iliad,  we  fail  to  understand  that  the  total  result  of  the  first 
day's  fighting,  though  indecisive  in  itself,  is  yet,  compared  with 
the  previous  state  of  things,  most  encouraging  to  the  Trojans. 

Having  examined  the  background  of  the  Iliad,  let  us  turn 
now  to  the  plot  itself.  "  Sing,  goddess,  the  wrath  of  Achilles, 
Peleus'  son,  the  ruinous  wrath  that  brought  on  the  Acliaians 
woes  innumerable."  In  these,  the  opening  words  of  the  Iliad, 
we  have  the  subject  fully  stated ;  the  poem  is  the  story  of 
Achilles'  wrath  and  its  consequences.  The  plot  is  the  way  in 
which  the  wrath  was  aroused,  displayed,  and  finally  exhausted. 

1  Here  and  throughout  the  translations  are  from  the  excellent  versions  of 
the  Iliad  by  Messrs.  Lang,  Leaf,  and  Myers ;  of  the  Odyssey,  by  Messrs. 
Butcher  and  Lang. 


EPIC  poetry:  the  iliad,  h 

If  now  we  examine  the  Iliad  we  shall  find  there  is  little  in  it 
that  was  not  designed — whether  by  a  single  original  author,  or 
by  the  authors  of  subsequently  added  books— for  the  purpose 
of  carrying  forward  the  plot.  Given  the  subject,  different 
authors  might  work  it  out  in  different  ways,  might  imagine 
different  caases  for  the  quarrel,  different  forms  for  Achilles' 
anger  to  take,  and  different  modes  of  terminating  it.  But  in 
the  Iliad  tliere  are  no  traces  of  any  differences  on  any  of  these 
points.  The  plot  is  one  and  the  same  throughout.  The  cause 
of  the  quarrel  is  always  the  unfair  and  dishonouring  treatment 
of  Achilles  by  Agamemnon  in  the  matter  of  Brise'is ;  the  form 
which  Achilles'  anger  takes  is  always  abstention  from  assisting 
the  Achaeans  ;  and  the  resolution  of  the  entanglement  is  always 
the  death  of  Patroclus,  and  the  consequent  renunciation  by 
Achilles  of  his  punitive  inaction. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  plot  a  little  more  closely,  and  see  how 
the  details  fit  in  with  the  main  outline  of  the  story,  and  are 
necessitated  by  it  and  by  each  other.  Achilles  complains  to 
Thetis  of  the  wrong  put  on  him,  and  she  obtains  from  Zeus  a 
promise  that  the  Achseans  shall  suffer  for  their  conduct.  This 
promise  dominates  the  whole  story,  there  is  no  hint  of  any  other 
reason  for  the  general  reverse — in  spite  of  temporary  successes 
— of  the  Achaeans  ;  and  from  this  interference  of  Zeus,  which  is 
implied  by  the  whole  of  the  Iliad,  flow  the  events  of  the  tirst 
day's  fighting.  That  these  events  might  have  been  framed 
differently  by  the  poet  is  true,  but  this  does  not  show  that 
they  were  originally  conceived  by  him  in  some  other  way.  The 
cause,  the  exhibition,  and  the  termination  of  Achilles'  anger, 
might  have  been  worked  out  in  a  manner  different  from  that 
in  which  they  have  actually  been  developed.  But  no  one 
argues  from  this  that  they  were  originally  developed  differently  ; 
and  the  reason  is  that  the  actual  treatment  of  any  one  of  these 
points  is  consistent  with  itself,  and  harmonises  with  the  rest. 
So  too  the  events  of  the  first  day's  fighting.  The  deceitful 
dream  sent  by  Zeus  induces  Agamemnon  to  make  a  general 
attack,  which  he  prefaces  by  proving  the  spirit  of  his  men ; 
and  the  Trojans  are  encouraged  by  the  intervention  of  Zeus 
to  accept  the  engagement.  Thus  Paris  and  Menelaus  are 
brought  face  to  face  :  the  duel  naturally  and  its  consequences 
necessarily  follow.  If  the  duel  had  been  fought  out,  and  its 
terms  acted  on,  the  war  would  have  ended,  and  Zeus'  promise 
■would  have  been  broken.  The  treachery  of  Pandarus,  there- 
fore, and  a  general  engagement  were  necessitated  by  tha 
duel 


12  HISTORY   OF   GREEK   LITERATURE. 

The  other  incidents  which  belong  to  this  the  first  day  of 
fighting,  the  second  of  the  Iliad's  action,  follow  from  the  pro- 
mise of  Zeus,  and  are  implied  by  what  happens  after  them,  as 
well  as  by  the  state  of  things  which  is  represented  as  existing 
at  the  moment  when  the  Iliad  begins.  That  is  to  say,  the 
fighting  is  necessitated  by  the  treachery  of  Pandarus  (which  is 
referred  to  several  times,  v.  206,  vii.  69  and  351);  disaster  to 
the  Achasans  is  involved  by  the  promise  of  Zeus ;  while  the 
overwhelming  numbers  of  the  Achaeans  (ii.  123  ff.),  and  the 
nine  years'  terror  of  the  Trojans,  made  it  impossible  for  the 
poet  to  represent  the  Achseans  as  suflfering  a  crushing  defeat 
the  very  first  time  they  met  their  foes  in  the  open  field.  In 
these  considerations  we  find  the  explanation  and  justification  of 
the  books  which  relate  the  prowess  of  Diomede.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  promise  of  Zeus  made  it  imperative  that  the  Achaeans 
should  suffer  defeat ;  on  the  other,  the  demands  of  probability 
and  consistency  required  that  the  promise  of  Zeus  should  be,  if 
not  overridden,  at  least  to  some  extent  thwarted :  and  the  solu- 
tion of  this  difficulty  was  found  in  the  intervention  of  the 
deities  that  sided  with  the  Achaeans — an  intervention  which 
showed  itself  in  supporting  Diomede. 

Thus  the  appearance  of  Diomede  rests  on  conceptions  which 
are  at  the  very  foundation  of  the  plot.  On  the  appearance  of 
Diomede  depend  the  departure  of  Hector  for  Troy  to  institute 
prayers  for  his  repulse,  the  meeting  of  Hector  and  Andromache, 
and  the  contrasted  scene  between  Hector,  Paris,  and  Helen. 
All  these  incidents  derive  their  connection  with  the  plot  from 
the  exploits  of  Diomede,  as  the  latter  in  their  turn  derive 
much  of  their  aesthetic  value  from  the  fact  that  the  former 
depend  on  them.  The  next  event,  the  single  combat  between 
Hector  and  Ajax,  does  not  flow  from  the  exploits  of  Diomede, 
but  serves  to  impress  the  same  conclusion  on  the  reader,  viz., 
that  the  Trojans,  who  had  long  been  inferior  to  the  Achaeans, 
were  now  proving  a  match  for  them. 

But  for  the  Trojans  merely  to  prove  a  match  for  the  Achaeans S 
■was  no  fulfilment  of  the  promise  made  by  Zeus  to  Thetis. 
Thanks  to  the  prowess  of  Diomede  and  the  intervention  of  \ 
some  of  the  gods,  the  Achaeans  had  by  no  means  suffered  so 
severely  as  the  wrath  of  Achilles  and  the  promise  of  Zeus  de- 
manded. It  became  necessary,  therefore,  for  Zeus  to  intervene 
in  a  yet  more  decided  manner  ;  and  the  angry  speech  in  which 
he  forbids  any  of  the  gods  to  assist  the  Achaeans  was  necessi- 
tated by  what  had  occurred,  and  shows  the  close  connection 
between  this  part  of  the  Iliad  and  the  preceding  books.     The 


EPIC    POETRY  :    THE    ILIAD.  I  3 

success  which  Zeus  now  interferes  to  secure  to  the  Trojans, 
sufficient  to  make  Agamemnon  desire  once  more  the  services  of 
Achilles,  but  not  sufficiently  overwhelming  to  satiate  Achilles' 
wrath,  naturally  results  in  the  embassy  to  the  offended  hero, 
which  as  naturally  fails.  The  episode  known  as  the  Doloneia 
filling  the  Tenth  Book  has  no  connection  with  the  plot.  But 
in  the  Eleventh  Book  we  begin  to  see  what  is  an  essential  part 
of  the  subject  of  the  Iliad,  the  "  woes  innumerable"  entailed 
by  the  wrath  of  Achilles.  One  after  the  other,  Agamemnon, 
Diomede,  and  Ulysses,  as  well  as  inferior  Achaean  chieftains, 
are  wounded  and  have  to  retire  from  the  fray.  What  Achilles 
had  prayed  for  was  beginning  to  come  to  pass.  Now  he  has 
the  Achseans  on  the  hip  :  when  they  came  to  him  before,  they 
did  not  understand  the  fury  of  his  resentment.  And  this  was 
but  the  earnest  of  what  was  to  come  •;  for  the  Trojans  attacked 
the  wall  which  the  Achseans,  thus  practically  acknowledging 
their  inferiority,  had  built  at  the  end  of  the  first  day's  fighting 
to  protect  their  ships. 

But  though  the  cup  of  victory  seemed  so  near  the  Trojans' 
lips,  it  was  not  to  reach  them.  To  represent  the  Achaeaus,  so 
long  masters  of  the  field,  as  yielding  all  the  time  and  making 
no  stand,  was  alike  opposed  to  probabilities  and  to  the  poet's 
patriotism.  The  necessity  for  their  ill-success  was  the  will  of 
Zeus,  and  the  only  power  capable  of  even  temporarily  opposing 
the  father  of  gods  and  men  was  to  be  found  in  Poseidon,  the 
brother,  and  Here  the  sister-wife  of  Zeus.  This  agency  is 
accordingly  set  in  action  ;  and  the  tide  of  Trojan  victory,  which 
threatened  to  be  unbroken  and  monotonous,  is  checked  for  a 
time,  until  Zeus  again  interferes,  and  once  more  the  tide  rolls 
on.  Achilles  is  so  far  satisfied  with  the  sufi'erings  of  the 
Achseans — for  now  his  wrath  had,  as  the  proem  of  the  Iliad 
summarises  it,  "  hurled  down  into  Hades  many  strong  souls 
of  heroes,  and  given  their  bodies  to  be  a  prey  to  dogs  and  all 
winged  fowls" — that  he  is  willing  to  allow  Patroclus  to  assume 
his  armour  and  fight  for  the  Achseans.  After  this  the  plot 
moves  rapidly  and  easily.  Patroclus  is  slain :  the  loss  of 
Achilles'  armour,  the  lending  of  which  to  Patroclus  had  been 
suggested  as  far  back  as  the  Tenth  Book  by  Nestor,  necessitates 
the  making  of  new  armour,  and  the  vengeance  which  AchiUes 
must  take  compels  him,  reluctantly  enough,  to  submit  to  recon- 
ciliation with  Agamemnon. 

With  the  death  of  Hector  at  the  hands  of  Achilles,  the  action 
of  the  Iliad  is  sometimes  said  to  be  ended.  But  a  little  reflec- 
tion will  show  us  that  this  is  not  quite  the  case.     In  order  to 


14  HISTORY    OF   GREEK    LITERATURE. 

be  able  to  avenge  tbe  death  of  Patroclus,  Achilles  desired  the 
Achaeans  to  move  against  the  Trojans ;  but  this  could  only  be 
done  by  the  order  of  Agamemnon,  and  before  giving  this  order 
Agamemnon  insists  on  Achilles  accepting  the  gifts  he  had 
already  offered.  Achilles  allows  them  to  be  thrust  on  him, — 
plainly  because  he  cares  for  nothing  but  vengeance,  not  because 
his  feeling  against  Agamemnon  has  died  out  entirely.  The 
feeling  of  wrath  is  outweighed,  not  banished,  by  the  desire  of 
revenge ;  and  it  is  only  in  the  Twenty-third  Book  that  we  find 
the  wrath  of  Achilles  finally  banished  from  his  bosom.  In  that 
hook,  at  the  end  of  the  funeral  games  held  in  honour  of  Patro- 
clus, Achilles  makes  an  opportunity  of  paying  Agamemnon  a 
courteous  compliment,  which  shows  his  resentment  to  be  ended 
as  plainly  as,  in  the  so-called  reconciliation  of  a  previous  book, 
his  behaviour  showed  that  he  still  harboured  some  feeling  of 
resentment. 

The  last  book  of  the  Iliad  cannot  be  said  to  be  indispensable 
to  the  action  or  the  plot ;  the  subject  of  the  epic,  the  wrath  of 
Achilles,  is  exhausted.  But  for  the  interest,  for  the  character- 
drawing,  and  on  Aristotle's  principle  that  an  epic  must  have,  as 
•well  as  a  beginning  and  middle,  an  end,  the  Twenty-fourth 
Book  is  indispensable. 

Having  examined  the  structure,  and  seen  the  essential  unity 
of  the  plot,  and  having  admired  the  way  in  which  Homer  con- 
veys to  the  reader's  mind  the  state  of  things  which  must  he 
supposed  as  preceding  the  action  of  the  Iliad,  we  may  now  con- 
sider the  skiU  with  which  he  dismisses  the  subject,  as  it  were. 
The  state  of  things  which  ensues  on  the  story  has  to  be  indi- 
cated, as  well  as  that  which  precedes  it ;  in  other  words,  the 
background  has  to  be  completed.  This  is  done  inartistically  by 
Euripides  in  some  plays  by  means  of  an  epilogue,  in  which  the 
author  explains  the  subsequent  fate  of  his  characters — thereby 
admitting  that  his  play  is  not  complete  and  satisfactory  in  itself, 
that,  in  Aristotle's  words,  it  has  not  an  end.  Now  although  iu 
the  Iliad  the  subject  proper,  the  wrath  of  Achilles,  is  brought 
to  a  full,  satisfactory,  and  tragic  termination,  there  are  things 
which  cannot  como  to  an  end  within  the  limits  of  the  action, 
which  yet  the  reader  wishes  to  be  satisfied  about.  The  interest 
inspired  by  Hector  is  naturally  terminated  within  the  limits  of 
the  plot,  because  it  is  part  of  the  plot  that  he  should  be  killed. 
But  the  fate  of  Troy,  which  the  story  makes  a  point  of  interest| 
by  the  conditions  of  the  i)Iot  cannot  form  part  of  the  plot 
Still  more  is  the  reader  anxious  to  know  the  fate  of  Achilles ; 
and  we  have  now  to  admire  the  skill  with  which  the  poet  satis 


EPIC  poetry:  the  iliad.  15 

fies  these  natural  demands,  without  violating  the  laws  of  illusion 
as  the  epilogues  of  Euripides  violate  them. 

With  consummate  art  Homer  anticipates  the  feelings  which 
•will  be  roused  in  the  reader.  Instead  of  waiting  till  interest 
and  curiosity  are  aroused,  and  then  providing  the  answer,  he 
gives  the  information  at  once.  Two  advantages  obviously  re- 
sult from  this :  in  the  first  place,  to  wait  for  the  curiosity  to  be 
aroused,  and  then  to  provide  the  answer,  would  be  as  though 
the  subsequent  events  were  not  really  the  consequences  of  the 
action,  but  had  been  invented  by  the  author  to  satisfy  the 
reader — a  violation  of  the  laws  of  illusion  which  one  feels  in 
the  termination  of  many  novels.  In  the  next  place,  by  provid- 
ing the  solution  along  with  the  problem,  Homer  prevents  the 
reader's  attention  from  being  distracted  from  the  action  of  the 
book  to  side  issues.  As  an  illustration  we  may  take  the  fate  of 
Troy.  As  soon  as  we  have  been  placed  in  full  possession  of  the 
causes  of  the  Trojan  war,  have  seen  Helen,  Paris,  and  Mene- 
laus,  have  seen  the  forces  mustered  on  both  sides,  and  have  had 
our  sympathies  with  the  Trojans  awakened  by  Hector  and 
Andromache,  at  once  the  question  of  the  fate  of  Troy  is  settled, 
and  speculations  on  the  subject  precluded,  by  means  of  the  gods 
in  the  Fourth  Book.  Zeus  pretends  to  be  thinking  of  allowing 
the  duel  between  Paris  and  Menelaus  to  put  an  end  to  the  war, 
in  which  case  "  the  city  of  King  Priam  may  yet  be  an  habita- 
tion, and  Menelaus  take  back  Helen  of  Argos."  But  although 
he  regiBts  that  Troy  must  be  sacked,  he  gives  Here  permission 
to  do  as  she  is  minded,  and  destroy  the  place.  And  the  destruc- 
tion of  Troy  is  felt  all  through  the  Iliad  to  be  certain  and  immi- 
nent. The  omen  of  the  sparrow  and  her  eight  young  ones, 
indicating  the  success  of  the  Achaeans  in  the  tenth  year,  the 
confidence  of  Diomede  that  Troy  is  doomed,  when  Agamemnon 
proposes  to  fly  in  consequence  of  the  abortive  embassy  to 
Achilles ;  and  in  the  Fifteenth  Book  the  express  declaration  of 
Zeus  that  Achilles  shall  rout  the  Trojans  "  until  the  Achaians 
take  steep  Ilion ; "  all  are  touches  painting  in  this  necessary 
feature  of  the  background. 

The  fate  of  Achilles,  which  was  more  certain  even  than  the 
fate  of  Troy  to  rouse  the  reader's  interest,  is  another  necessary 
feature  of  the  background,  and  the  skill  with  which  it  is  painted 
in  is  great.  At  first  the  indications  of  it  are  only  slight :  his 
death  looms  at  no  great  distance.  But  as  the  story  goes  on, 
and  as  the  figure  of  Achilles  becomes  more  and  more  the  centre 
of  the  action  and  the  interest,  the  death  which  dogs  his  footsteps 
becomes  clearer  and  clearer  to  our  eyes.     In  the  First  Book,  as 


10  HISTORY    OF    GREEK    LITERATURE. 

Boon  as  the  quarrel  is  over,  Achilles'  words  to  Thetis,  "  Mother, 
seeing  thou  didst  of  a  truth  hear  me  to  so  brief  span  of  life," 
ehow  us  dimly  what  is  to  happen.  When  Achilles  next  appears 
upon  the  scene,  in  the  Ninth  Book,  the  figure  of  death  takes  a 
clearer  shape.  Achilles  says  to  Ulysses,  "  If  I  abide  here  and 
besiege  the  Trojans'  city,  then  my  returning  home  is  taken 
from  me,  but  my  fame  shall  be  imperishable ;  but  if  I  go  home 
to  my  dear  native  land,  my  high  fame  is  taken  from  me,  but 
my  life  shall  endure  long  while,  neither  shall  the  issue  of  death 
soon  reach  me."  Thus  his  death  is  to  be  not  only  soon,  but 
during  this  Trojan  war.  When  Achilles,  in  the  Eighteenth 
Book,  is  about  to  take  vengeance  on  Hector,  his  death  is  yet 
more  sharply  defined.  Thetis  says  to  him,  "  Straightway  after 
Hector,  is  death  appointed  unto  thee."  Then  the  mode  of 
death  is  vaguely  brought  before  our  eyes  when  AchiUes  says 
to  Polydorus,  "My  life,  too,  some  man  shall  take  in  battle, 
whether  with  spear  he  smite  or  arrow  from  the  string."  Soon 
this  too  becomes  clearer,  for  in  the  Twenty-first  Book  the  hero 
says,  "Under  the  wall  of  the  mail-clad  men  of  Troy  I  must  die 
by  the  swift  arrows  of  Apollo."  Last,  in  the  next  book,  the 
dying  Hector  warns  his  slayer  "of  the  day  when  Paris  and 
Phoebus  Apollo  slay  thee,  for  all  thy  valour,  at  the  Skaian  gate." 
Is  it  necessary  to  dilate  on  this  perfect  piece  of  art  ?  What 
to  other  writers  would  have  been  a  stumbling-block,  Homer 
makes  into  an  ornament  and  a  support.  The  death  of  Achilles 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  plot  of  the  Hiad ;  it  is  a  side-issue 
which  must  be  disposed  of  somehow ;  and  it  is  further  a  side- 
issue  which  threatened  to  ruin  the  unity  of  the  epic  by  becom- 
ing more  interesting  than  the  proper  subject,  by  thrusting  the 
latter  into  a  secondary  and  itself  taking  the  first  place.  The 
side-issue  is  allowed  to  develop  all  its  strength  and  then  made 
to  strengthen  the  main  plot.  Whenever  Achilles  appears  before 
the  reader,  it  is  to  the  accompaniment  of  these  funeral  notes. 
They  mark  his  presence  on  the  stage  as  in  a  work  of  Wagner's 
a  "  motive  "  marks  a  character's  appearance.  As  the  interest  of 
the  subject  increases,  and  as  the  action  advances,  these  notes 
become  louder  and  louder,  until  the  climax  of  the  excitement 
is  reached  and  the  crescendo  ends  with  Hector's  dying  pr» 
phecy  in  a  final  and  terrible  crash. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  ODYSSEY.  I^ 

CHAPTEE    IL 

THE    ODYSSEY. 

The  Odyssey  has  been  more  popular  in  modem  times  than  the 
Iliad.  This  is  doubtless  partly  due  to  its  being  domestic  and 
not  military  in  its  subject.  Descriptions  of  fighting  done  with 
obsolete  weapons  have  mainly  but  an  antiquarian  interest ;  and 
the  various  kinds  of  wounds  and  various  modes  of  shedding 
blood  have  less  charm  for  an  industrial  and  domestic  society 
than  have  the  sufferings  of  a  faithful  wife.  The  domestic  , 
interest  is  indeed  present  in  the  Iliad,  and  Hector  and  Andro-  \f 
mache,  for  that  reason,  tended  in  the  Middle  Ages  to  come  to  ' 
be  regarded  as  the  leading  characters  and  the  central  interest 
of  the  Iliad — a  wholly  false  conception  of  the  epic.  Another 
reason  for  the  popularity  in  modern  times  of  the  Odyssey  is 
that  the  poem  contains  fairy  tales.  Ogres  and  ogresses,  the 
floating  island  of  ^olus,  the  marvellous  bag  containing  the 
winds,  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  the  descent  into  the  realms  of  the 
dead,  the  enchanted  isles  of  Circe  and  Calypso,  the  one-eyed 
giant,  are  all  tales  which  exercise  now,  as  they  seem  to  have 
done  from  the  earliest  Aryan  times,  an  inexhaustible  influence 
over  the  popular  fancy.  A  third  reason  for  the  popularity  of 
the  Odyssey  is  that,  in  addition  to  the  poetry  with  which  all 
these  tales  are  invested,  they  are  woven  with  consummate  artis- 
tic skill  into  a  single  whole. 

Let  us  now  see  wherein  the  unity  of  the  Odyssey,  as  we  have 
it,  consists ;  for  that  it  possesses  unity  is  universally  admitted, 
though  it  is  disputed  whether  this  unity  is  the  deliberate 
design  of  one  artist,  or  the  result  of  the  labours  of  successive 
generations  of  poets  working  at  the  same  subject.  The  theme 
of  the  Odyssey  is  as  simple  as  that  of  the  Iliad :  the  one  is  the 
•wrath  of  Achilles  and  its  consequences,  the  other  is  the  return 
of  Odysseus  home.  As  Aristotle  says  {Poetics,  1 7),  the  argument 
of  the  Odyssey  is  slight :  a  man  being  away  from  home  for  many 
years,  things  at  home  fall  into  such  a  condition  that  his  sub- 
stance is  devoured  by  suitors,  and  plots  are  formed  against  his 
son  ;  at  length,  after  a  stormy  voyage,  the  hero  comes  home,  and 
having  revealed  himself  to  a  few  people  and  having  attacked 
the  suitors,  comes  off  safe  himself  and  kills  his  enemies. 
Everything  else  is  episode.  But  these  episodes  are  woven — 
•whether  by  one  poet  or  more — so  skilfully  into  the  narrative, 
that  if  envious  Time  had  robbed  us  of  the  Iliad  and  left  us 

B 


V 


1 8  HISTOKY   OF   GREEK    LITERATURE. 

only  the  Odyssey,  there  never,  in  all  probability,  would  have 
arisen  the  question  whether  the  Homeric  poems  are  the  work 
of  one  author  or  more. 

As  in  the  Iliad,  so  in  the  Odyssey,  there  are  at  the  beginning 
of  the  epic  several  books  which  do  not  advance  the  action  oi 
the  poem,  but  depict  the  state  of  things  preceding  it  and  serve 
as  an  exposition.  The  first  four  books  of  the  Odyssey  contain 
the  journey  of  Telemachus  to  Pylos  and  Sparta  in  quest  of 
news  of  his  father.  In  them  Telemachus  is  the  principal  figure, 
and  they  have  in  consequence  been  called  the  Telemachia. 
From  these  books,  as  from  certain  books  of  the  Iliad,  the  hero 
of  the  epic  is  absent.  But  in  the  Iliad  the  absence  of  Achilles 
is  necessary,  because  the  Greeks  have  to  be  made  to  feel  the 
consequences  of  his  wrath.  In  the  Odyssey  the  absence  of 
Odysseus  from  home  is  equally  part  of  the  theme  of  the  poem ; 
and  for  the  interest  of  the  poem  it  is  necessary  that  the  state 
of  things  in  the  hero's  home  should  be  depicted,  so  as  to  enlist 
the  reader's  sympathy  with  the  hero  in  his  struggles  to  return, 
and  with  the  hero's  wife  and  son  in  their  longing  for  his  return. 
The  art  with  which  both  these  objects  are  attained  in  the 
Telemachia  hardly  needs  pointing  out.  The  insolence  of  the 
suitors  is  brought  into  high  relief  by  the  device  of  bringing 
Athene  on  the  scene  in  the  guise  of  a  stranger :  the  impression 
made  on  the  seeming  stranger  by  the  wantonness  of  the  wooers 
is  felt  to  be  the  judgment  which  any  impartial  and  honest  man 
would  pass  upon  their  conduct.  Further,  the  evil  character  of 
the  suitors  comes  out  more  and  more,  the  more  we  see  of  them. 
The  evil  which  they  work  is  not  confined,  as  it  might  be  inferred 
from  the  First  Book,  to  the  house  of  Odysseus.  In  the  Second 
Book  we  find  in  the  assembly  that  they  behave  to  the  people 
of  Ithaca  as  insolently  as  they  treat  Penelope  and  Telemachus ; 
and  finally,  in  the  Fourth  Book,  they  plot  the  death  of  the  son 
while  hoping  by  force  to  wed  tlie  mother,  and  they  enjoy  the 
humour  of  the  situation. 

By  the  side  of  this  picture  we  have  that  of  the  faithful  wife. 
This  stiand  in  the  thread  of  the  story  runs  through  all  the  four 
books.  It  appears  not  only  in  the  First  Book,  but  in  the 
Second  Book,  in  the  story  of  the  unravelling  of  tlie  web  by 
night ;  and  in  Books  iii.  and  iv.  it  is  brought  out  by  tlie  con- 
trast between  Penelope  and  Clytemestra.^  Attention  should 
also  be  paid  to  the  Avay  in  which,  in  tlie  Telemachia,  the  news 
about  Odysseus,  vague  at  first,  takes  more  and  more  definite 

'  This  appears  to  be  the  correct  way  of  spelling  the  name — not  ClyteiU' 
nestra. 


I   UNIVERSITY   1 

V  or  / 

"epicfoetky:  the  odyssey.  19 

shape  as  Telemachus  proceeds  with  the  inquiry,  but  stops  when 
it  reaches  the  point  at  which  the  action  of  the  Odyssey  begins.^ 
At  the  beginning  of  Book  i.  no  news  is  known  to  Telemachus 
of  Jiis  father.  Then,  in  disguise,  comes  Athene,  who  had  seen 
Odysseus  when  he  started  for  the  war.  Next,  Nestor  has  seen 
him  immediately  after  the  war,  but  knows  nothing  more.  Then 
Menelaus  learnt  from  Proteus  still  later  that  Odysseus  was  con- 
fined in  Calypso's  isle,  Ogygia. 

■This  forms  the  exposition  ;  and  it  is  only  when  our  interest 
and  sympathy  have  been  roused,  when  the  distance  of  Odysseus 
from  home  has  been  impressed  on  us,  and  the  desire  awakened 
in  us  to  know  how  he  came  to  be  in  Ogygia,  and  how  he  is  to 
come  home,  that  the  poet  begins  the  tale  of  his  wanderings  and 
his  adventures.  The  tales  which  are  contained  in  this  part 
of  the  Odyssey  existed  long  before  Homer's  time,  and  among 
many  other  peoples  than  the  Greeks.  The  story  of  the  one- 
eyed  giant  is  probably  not  of  Aryan  origin^  for  it  is  found 
among  Esthonians  and  Basques,  who  lived  in  Europe  long  before 
their  Aryan  invaders  came  there.  The  transformation  of  men 
into  beasts  is  a  widely  spread  belief,  and  the  tale  of  Circe  in 
particular  appears  in  the  Sanskrit  Somadeva,  as  does  also  the 
land  of  Phaeacia ;  though,  as  the  Somadeva  was  put  together 
about  1200  A.D.,  these  two  tales  may  have  travelled  from 
Greece  to  India,  as  one  of  the  tales  in  the  Hitopader^a  travelled 
from  Hindostan  to  Alexandria  by  the  caravan  route,  and  became 
incorporated  in  the  Arabian  Nights.  Mermaidens  such  as  the 
Sirens,  ogres  and  ogresses  such  as  the  Lsestrygonians,  the 
octopus  which  figures  as  Scylla,  tlie  clashing  rocks  which  are 
known  to  the  Aztecs,  the  descent  into  the  realms  of  the  dead, 
which  is  told  by  the  South  Sea  Islanders,  should  all,  pro- 
bably, be  regarded,  not  as  the  original  invention  of  Homer,  but 
as  popular  stories,  Mdrchen,  which  the  poet  fused  into  the 
Odyssey. 

We  have  now,  however,  not  to  trace  the  ultimate  origin  of 
these  sagas,  but  to  see  how  they  are  united  into  one  poem  along 
with  the  tale,  which  existed  in  other  forms  before  it  was 
attached  to  the  name  of  Odysseus,  of  the  hero  who  after  long 
absence  returned  to  his  faithful  wife.  In  one  of  these  legends, 
that  of  the  Cyclops,  Odysseus  acts  in  a  manner  unlike  his  usual 

^  This  seems  to  indicate  that  the  Telemachia  probably  never  existed  inde- 
pendently of  the  Odyssey.  Why  should  a  writer  who  had  never  heard  of 
the  Odyssey  happen,  when  relating  a  voyage  of  Telemachus,  to  give  just 
Buch  information  as  is  required  for  the  understanding  of  the  Odyssey,  and 
then  break  off  at  the  point  where  another  poet,  working  independently» 
happened  precisely  to  begin? 


20  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

prudence  ;  he  deliberately  courts  misfortune  and  voluntarily 
enters  the  Cyclops'  den.  This  was  probably  an  essential  feature 
in  the  popular  tale  ;  and  Homer,  in  adopting  the  story,  haa 
retained  this  feature ;  but  so  far  from  leaving  it  as  an  unsightly 
inconsistency,  he  has  turned  it  to  advantage.  This  piece  of 
folly  in  which  Odysseus  indulges  is  "  the  beginning  of  evil" 
It  led  to  the  blinding  of  the  Cyclops,  which  provoked  the 
wrath  of  Poseidon,  and  that  was  the  cause  of  all  Odysseus' 
wanderings.  From  the  land  of  the  Cyclops  he  was  carried  to 
the  floating  island  of  ^olus,  but  the  safe  return  which  the 
wonderful  wallet  might  have  procured  for  Odysseus  was 
frustrated,  evidently,  as  ^olus  says,  by  the  gods.  After  this 
indication  of  the  nature  of  the  power  that  was  presiding  over 
his  course,  it  is  not  surprising  that  Odysseus  should  next  lose 
all  his  ships  but  one  among  the  Laestrygonians,  and  then  be 
carried  to  the  enchanted  island  of  Circe.  After  his  year's  stay 
there,  he  is  sent  by  Circe  down  to  Hades,  there  to  learn  what 
wanderings  destiny  yet  has  in  store  for  him.  Thus  his  subse- 
quent course  does  not  appear  to  be  the  arbitrary  arrangement  of 
a  poet  working  up  given  material,  but  has  the  seal  of  fate  set  on 
it  by  the  appalling  scene  among  the  dead.  From  Circe's  isle, 
^aea,  he  sails  by  the  Sirens,  the  Eocks  Wandering,  Scylla  and 
Charybdis,  and  thus  reaches  the  Island  of  the  Sun.  There  his 
crew  commit  the  offence  they  were  warned  against,  and  kill 
the  sacred  herds  of  Helios.  Thus  all  his  crew  perished,  and 
Odysseus  alone  was  saved  on  Calypso's  isle.  There  he  spends 
eight  years,  until  Athene  pleads  for  him  against  Poseidon  among 
the  gods,  and  he  is  allowed  to  sail  from  Ogygia  to  the  land  of 
the  Phaeacians,  not,  however,  without  suffering  wreck  once  more 
from  Poseidon's  power.  From  Phaeacia  he  reaches  Ithaca  iu 
safety. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  latter  half  of  the  hero's  adventures 
are  bound  together  by  the  utterance  of  the  seer  Teiresias  in 
Hades,  and  that  the  descent  to  Hades  was  one  of  the  conse- 
quences of  the  wrath  of  Poseidon.  The  direct  intervention  of 
this  god  occurs  in  the  wreck  of  the  raft  on  which  Odysseus  set 
sail  from  Ogygia,  and  the  misfortunes  of  Odysseus  generally  are 
ascribed  to  Poseidon  both  by  Teiresias  and  by  Athene,  But 
in  most  of  the  calamities  that  overtook  Odysseus  there  is  no 
special  mention  of  Poseidon  as  the  immediate  cause.  This  has 
been  regarded  by  some  critics  as  a  proof  that  in  the  original 
Odyssey  there  was  a  different  conception  of  the  cause  of  the 
hero's  wanderings,  and  that  the  introduction  of  Poseidon  ia 
later  than  the  "  kernel  "  of  the  Odyssey.     But  this  theory  pro 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  ODYSSEY.  2  I 

ceeds  on  the  tacit  assumption  that  if  the  adventures  of  Odysseua 
had  been  composed  by  the  same  poet  who  wrote  the  Telemachia 
and  the  last  twelve  books,  and  who  ascribed  the  adventures 
and  misfortunes  of  Odysseus  to  Poseidon's  anger,  he  would  in 
relating  each  of  them  have  specially  mentioned  Poseidon  as  the 
cause.  But  of  this  there  is  no  proof,  and  it  may  be  questioned 
whethar  the  continued  introduction  of  Poseidon,  time  after 
time,  would  not  have  been  monotonous  and  inartistic.  The 
popular  stories  which  Homer  wove  into  the  Odyssey  had  origi- 
nally no  connection  with  Odysseus,  and  therefore  none  with 
Poseidon;  and  so  far  the  importation  of  Poseidon  into  them  is 
later  than  the  stories  themselves.  Possibly  these  stories  had 
become  popularly  associated  with  the  name  of  Odysseus  before 
Homer  wove  them  together  by  the  device  of  making  Poseidon 
the  ultimate  cause  of  all  Odysseus'  adventures.  If  this  be  so, 
the  only  question  left  is  whether  the  poet  has  made  it  suffi- 
ciently clear  that  Poseidon  was  the  cause  ;  and  inasmuch  as  he 
three  times  expressly  and  as  it  were  officially — by  the  mouth 
of  a  goddess,  of  Teiresias  and  of  Odysseus — declares  that 
Poseidon  was  the  cause,  and  twice  introduces  Poseidon  as 
directly  intervening,  it  seems  to  be  hypercriticism  to  require 
more,  and  to  ascribe  some  of  the  work  to  one  author  and  the 
rest  to  another,  because  the  poet  has  not  labelled  each  and 
every  story  with  the  signature  of  Poseidon. 

The  fairyland  adventures  of  Odysseus,  then,  have  all  the 
unity  with  each  other  which  stories  of  such  diverse  origin 
could  have.  Their  connection  with  the  rest  of  the  Odyssey 
is  even  closer.  The  Telemachia  and  the  Thirteenth  Book 
both  ascribe  these  adventures  to  the  action  of  Poseidon.  Teire- 
sias in  Hades  prophesies  the  destruction  which  overtakes  the 
wooers  in  the  later  books.  The  appearance  of  the  ghost  of 
Anticleia  in  Hades  is  confirmed  by  the  mention  of  her  death 
in  the  later  books.  Further,  tlie  fidelity  of  Penelope  is  a 
feature  common  to  all  three  divisions  of  the  Odyssey.  It  is 
brought  out  in  the  same  way,  that  is,  by  pointed  contrast  with 
the  conduct  of  Clytemestra,  in  all  three  ;  and  the  happiness  of 
Arete  and  jSTausicsia  in  their  home  in  Phaeacia  can  scarcely  be 
ar,  accidental  contrast  to  the  sufferings  of  Penelope  in  her  home 
in  Ithaca.  Finally,  the  summary  which  Odysseus  gives  to 
Penelope  of  his  adventures  confirms  the  account  in  Books  v. 
to  xii. 

Thus  Books  v. -xii.  are  dominated  by  the  same  conception  of 
the  cause  of  Odysseus'  wanderings  and  of  the  state  of  things  in 
Ithaca  as  is  the  rest  of  the  Odyssey.     We  have  now  to  consider 


22  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

the  skill  with  which  the  climax  of  the  Odyssey  is  wrought  out  in 
Books  xiii.-xxiv.,  and  with  which  these  books  are  interwoven 
with  the  Telemachia,  Telemachus  having  been  sent  by  Athene 
to  Sparta,  is  recalled  by  her  to  Ithaca,  and,  in  order  to  avoid  the 
ambuscade  of  the  suitors,  is  bidden  to  land,  not  at  the  city,  but 
near  the  steading  of  Eumaeus,  the  swineherd.  Thus  Telema- 
chus is  brought  into  the  company  of  Odysseus,  and  the  threads 
of  the  Telemachia  and  Books  v.-xii.  are  united.^  The  next 
stage  in  the  action  is  brought  about  very  simply  and  artistically. 
Telemachus,  with  the  same  consideration  for  his  mother's  feel- 
ings as  he  displays  in  the  Telemachia,  where  he  takes  steps  to 
conceal  his  journey  from  her,  sends  Eumaeus  to  the  city  to 
inform  Penelope  of  his  safe  return.  Thus  the  stage  is  cleared 
for  the  recognition  of  Odysseus.  After  this,  Telemachus  goes 
first,  and  Odysseus  follows  him  to  the  city.  The  omens  indica- 
tive of  the  vengeance  th-at  is  nigh  become  more  and  more  fre- 
quent, reaching  their  climax  in  the  vision  of  Theoclymenus,  a 
character  that  appears  in  the  Telemachia  as  well  as  in  Books 
xiii.-xxiv.,  and  helps  to  unite  these  two  parts  of  the  Odyssey. 
While  these  tokens  of  the  gods'  will  are  manifesting  themselves, 
the  suitors  are  filling  the  measure  of  their  wrong-doing  by  their 
^resh  plot  against  the  life  of  Telemachus,  by  their  contumely 
t,">wards  the  disguised  Odysseus,  in  defiance  of  the  protection 
which  Zeus  accords  to  strangers  and  beggars,  and  in  strong 
contrast  to  the  behaviour  of  Eumaeus ;  while  the  universal 
misery  and  hatred  which  the  wooers  have  excited  is  revealed  in 
one  marvellous  flash,  when  at  the  dawn  of  the  day  of  Odysseus* 
vengeance  the  woman  at  the  mill  prays  to  Zeus,  "Fulfil  now, 
I  pray  thee,  even  to  miserable  me,  the  word  that  I  shall  speak. 
....  Tliey  that  have  loosened  my  knees  with  cruel  toil  to 
grind  their  barley-meal,  may  they  now  sup  their  last."  The 
crescendo  of  the  wooers'  crimes  is  common  to  the  Telemachia 
and  Books  xiii.-xxiv. 

The  excitement  of  the  plot  is  heightened  by  the  fact  that  on 
the  very  day  Odysseus  enters  his  house  in  disguise,  Penelope, 
having,  in  defiance  of  public  opinion,  refused  for  so  long  to  wed, 
has,  with  infinite  grief,  resolved  to  make  an  end  of  her  resistance 
to  the  suitors.  Her  husband  had  charged  her  to  wait,  if  he  did 
not  return,  no  longer  than  till  their  son  was  a  grown  man  : 
that  time  had  come,  and  regard  for  her  son's  future  prompted 
her  to  a  decision.     Thus  she  resolves  on  the  trial  of  the  bow  ; 

1  If  the  Telemachia  did  not  form  part  of  the  original  Odyssey,  and  Tel». 
nacbus  was  not  represented  therein  as  makiug  a  voyage,  his  return  to  Ithaca 
la  somewhat  inexplicable. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  ODYSSEY.  2$ 

and  on  that  day  Odysseus  arrives.  The  situation  is  dramatic  ; 
but  it  is  said  by  some  critics  that  there  are  indications  in  the 
poem  itself  that  this  is  not  the  tale  as  it  was  told  in  the  original 
Odyssey.  In  the  last  book  the  ghost  of  Amphimedon  ascribes 
the  trial  of  the  bow  to  the  ingenuity  of  Odysseus,  who  suggested 
it  to  his  wife  in  order  to  bring  about  the  wooers'  destruction. 
This,  we  are  told,  proves  that,  originally,  Penelope  was  not 
about  to  succumb  to  the  twenty  years  of  weary  waiting  and 
hope  deferred  that  she  had  suffered.  The  disguised  Odysseus 
suggested,  and  she  accepted  it,  as  a  means  of  further  delay,  since 
it  was  certain  that  none  of  the  wooers  could  succeed  in  the  triaL 
Thus  there  was  originally  no  situation  :  things  were  going  on 
much  as  usual,  and  there  was  no  particular  need  for  Odysseus 
to  arrive  at  this  time  rather  than  any  other.  Consequently  our 
admiration  of  the  unity  of  the  Odyssey  is,  at  least  as  regards 
this  point,  misplaced,  because  here  we  have  not  unity,  but  dis- 
crepancy of  design. 

It  does  not,  however,  seem  necessary  to  accept  this  conclusion. 
That  Amphimedon,  knowing  nothing  of  the  facts,  should  ascribe 
the  conjunction  of  events  which  brought  about  the  slaughter 
to  the  cunning  of  Odysseus  is  natural,  and  is  consistent  with 
the  repeated  tributes  to  the  hero's  cleverness  which  occur 
throughout  the  poem.  To  press  the  words  further  is  unsafe, 
and  we  are  not  much  encouraged  to  draw  from  them  conclu- 
sions about  the  original  form  of  the  Odyssey,  when  we  find 
that  the  passage  in  which  they  occur — the  second  Nekuia — is 
regarded  by  the  same  critics  as  having  been  introduced  long 
after  the  original  form  of  the  Odyssey  had  been  lost. 

The  unity  of  design  in  the  later  books  of  the  Odyssey  has  also 
been  attacked  on  other  grounds.  Athene,  having  transformed 
and  re-transformed  Odysseus,  again  gives  him  the  appearance  of 
a  beggar,  and  in  that  disguise  he  goes  to  his  home  ;  is  iU-treated 
by,  and  kills,  the  suitors.  Then,  without  being  changed  back 
into  his  proper  shape,  he  is  recognised  by  Penelope.  This  fact — 
that  Odysseu-s  is  not  mentioned  as  being  changed  again  into  his 
real  shape — is  taken  to  show  that  originally  there  was  no  trans- 
forming of  Odysseus  at  all.  In  the  original  Odyssey,  the  hero, 
aged  and  altered  by  years  and  suffering,  was  naturally  protected 
from  immediate  recognition.  But  a  later  and  more  "  reflective  " 
age  found  a  supernatural  transformation  necessary  to  account 
for  the  non-recognition  of  Odysseus  by  his  son,  wife,  and 
servants  ;  and  so  the  original  tale  was  patched  with  this  view. 
But  fortunately  the  original  conception  is  still  to  be  seen  by 
seeing  eyes.     If  Odysseus  had  originally  and  really  been  trans- 


24         HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

formed,  then  of  course  the  scar  on  his  leg  would  have  been 
transformed  too.  But  the  scar  ou  his  leg  was  not  transformed  ; 
he  shows  it  to  his  father,  to  Eumaeus,  and  to  the  neatherd,  and 
Eurycleia  discovered  him  by  it ;  therefore  Odysseus  was  not 
transformed  in  the  original  Odyssey.  Consequ'^ntly,  instead  of 
unity,  we  have  again  discrepancy  of  design ;  for  these  scenes  are 
a  patchwork  combination  of  the  work  of  two  very  difieren* 
ages. 

As  these  arguments  have  been  put  forward  gravely,  they 
must  receive  a  grave  answer  ;  and  we  may  say,  first,  that  before 
Odysseus  is  recognised  by  Penelope,  he  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
re-transformed  (xxiii.  156-163)  by  Athene.  She  does  not, 
indeed,  use  her  wand  as  she  does  in  first  transforming  him,  but 
to  the  gods  all  things  are  possible.  Secondly,  in  all  countries 
and  literature,  the  supernatural  and  marvellous  precede  the 
employment  of  purely  natural  causes.  Fairy  tales  come  early, 
/^-^not  late,  in  a  nation's  growth  ;  so  that  if  two  versions  of  the 
"Btory  did  exist,  we  should  be  justified  in  concluding  that  the 
version  which  contained  a  magic  change  was  earlier  than  that 
which  relied  solely  on  the  changes  brought  about  by  the  natural 
operation  of  age  and  suffering.  Thirdly,  the  subject  of  trans- 
formation is  a  difficult  and  obscure  one.  Ir  2ne  story  the 
change  seems  to  leave  untouched  at  least  the  psychological 
identity  of  the  person  transformed  ;  whereas  in  another  a  very 
simple  measure  of  transformation  is  enough  to  cause  the  person 
concerned  to  ask,  "  Can  this  be  11"  The  li^nits  within  which 
are  confined  the  changes  wrought  by  transformation  seem  to  be 
shifting,  and  to  be  so  elastic  that,  if  Homer  eays  or  implies  that 
Odysseus  was  indeed  transformed,  but  the  transformation  did 
not  take  effect  upon  his  legs  or  the  scars  upon  his  legs,  Ave  may 
fortify  ourselves  by  the  analogy  of  the  prince  in  the  Arabian 
Nights  (who  conversely  had  his  legs  changed  into  black  marble, 
but  not  the  rest  of  his  body),  and  take  Homer's  word  for  it. 

Without  her^  entering  upon  the  question  as  to  whether 
we  have  the  "  original "  Odyssey  or  not,  and,  if  not,  how  the 
changes  that  have  been  made  were  made,  we  may  at  least  con- 
clude that  the  traces  of  such  changes  are  not  considerable  enough 
to  affect  the  admiration  which  critics,  from  Aristotle  onwards, 
have  felt  and  expressed  for  the  unity  and  dramatic  interest  of 
the  Odyssey.  It  is  better  to  profit  by  the  beauty  of  the  poem 
as  we  have  it,  than  to  bestow  our  admiration  upon  the  Odyssey, 
•  original  "  it  may  be,  as  constructed  by  some  modern  critics. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  2  5 

CHAPTER  IIL 

THE   HOMERIC   QUESTION. 

In  very  early  times  there  seems  to  have  been  a  "  Homeric 
question,"  though  it  has  very  little  in  common  with  the  Homeric 
question  of  modern  times.  From  an  early  period  any  epic 
which  pleased  the  popular  fancy  appears  to  have  been  ascribed 
to  Homer,  as  any  law  at  Athens  which  had  anything  to  recom- 
mend it  was  ascribed  by  the  orators  to  Solon.  But  in  the 
course  of  time,  and  on  grounds  which,  like  the  epics  themselves, 
are  lost  to  us,  one  epic  after  another  was  abjudicated  from 
Homer,  and  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  were  the  only  epics  of 
■which  Homer  was  allowed  to  be  the  author.  But  the  process 
of  separation  did  not  stop  here.  Photius,  a  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, who  died  a.d.  891,  quotes  from  a  late  writer  named 
Proclus  a  statement  to  the  effect  that  Xenon  and  Hellanicus 
denied  that  the  Odyssey  was  by  Homer.  Of  Xenon  we  know 
nothing  (he  is  mentioned  in  one  of  the  Scholia — Greek  com- 
mentaries of  various  dates — to  the  Iliad,  and  that  is  all) : 
Hellanicus  was  senior  to  the  famous  Alexandrian  grammarian 
and  Homeric  critic,  Aristarchus,  whose  date  is  about  B.c.  222- 
150.  The  upholders  of  the  view  that  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey  were  by  different  aiithors  were  called  the  Cliorizontes 
or  Separatists,  and  were  combated  by  Aristarchus.  In  antiquity 
the  theory  was  considered  a  paradox ;  and  in  modern  times  the 
question  whether  the  two  poems  are  by  the  same  author  has 
yielded  to  the  question  whether  either  poem  is  by  a  single 
author. 

The  arguments  on  which  the  ancient  separatists  proceeded 
were  partly  linguistic  and  partly  mythological,  so  far  as  can  be 
learnt  from  the  scattered  notices  to  be  found  in  ancient  Greek 
commentaries  on  the  Iliad.  As  an  example  of  their  linguistic 
arguments,  we  may  take  that  based  on  the  use  of  the  word 
proparoithen,  "before."  This  word  may  be  used,  like  the 
English  "before,"  either  of  things  in  space  or  of  things  in  time, 
and  probably  was  first  used  of  space,  and  subsequently  extended 
to  time.  In  the  Iliad,  the  Cliorizontes  said,  the  word  is  used 
of  space ;  in  the  Odyssey,  of  time.  Obviously,  therefore,  lan- 
guage had  undergone  some  development  between  the  time  when 
the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  were  written.  But,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  word  is  used  of  time  in  the  Iliad  as  often  as  in  the 
Odyssey — once  in  each  poem.     An  instance  of  the  arguments 


26  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

drawn  from  mythology  is  the  fact  that  in  the  Iliad  Charis  is 
the  wife  of  Hephaestus ;  in  the  Odyssey,  Aphrodite.  This  ia 
undeniable;  but  in  the  "fluid  "state  in  which  mythology  waa 
in  early  times,  the  fact  does  not  go  for  much.  A  stronger  argu- 
ment is  that  in  the  Iliad  there  is  one  Charis,  in  the  Odyssey 
there  are  several  Charites,  which  may  indicate  that  the  legend 
had  undergone  development,  and  thus  point  to  a  later  origin  for 
the  Odyssey.  Another  mythological  argument  used  by  the 
ancient  Chorizontes  is  that  in  the  Iliad  Iris  appears  as  the 
messenger  of  the  gods ;  in  the  Odyssey,  Hermes.  But  the  facts 
do  not  wholly  bear  out  this  argument;  for  although  in  the 
Iliad  Iris  is  frequently  the  messenger,  Hermes  also  acts  on  one 
important  occasion  in  this  capacity ;  while  in  the  Odyssey, 
though  Hermes  appears  once  as  messenger,  the  functions  of  Iris 
had  certainly  not  died  out  of  memory,  as  is  shown  by  the  jest 
of  calling  a  beggar  who  ran  messages  Irus.i 

In  modern  times  the  arguments  of  the  ancient  Chorizontes 
have  been  taken  up  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that — whether 
each  poem  is  by  one,  and  only  one,  author  or  not — at  any  rate 
the  Odyssey  belongs  to  a  later  period  than  the  Iliad.  No  one 
professes  to  assign  much  weight  to  the  arguments  used,  though 
the  conclusion  is  pretty  generally  accepted.  That  there  are 
differences  between  the  two  poems  is  undisputed.  The  question 
is  whether  the  differences  are  greater  than  the  difference  in 
subject  naturally  involves.  "Minstrels"  are  frequently  men- 
tioned in  the  Odyssey,  but  are  unknown  in  the  Iliad.  But 
minstrels  were  apparently  the  appanages  of  a  court,  not  of  a 
camp.  In  the  Iliad  the  gods  are  much  more  violently  opposed 
to  each  other  than  in  the  Odyssey,  which  shows  a  progress  in 
religious  sentiment.  But  the  strife  in  Olympus  gives  majesty 
to  the  mortal  conflicts  of  the  Iliad,  whereas  in  the  Odyssey 
there  is  no  such  commotion  on  earth  as  to  rouse  war  in  heaven. 
Again,  it  is  said  that  the  Odyssey,  dealing  with  the  return  from 
Troy,  presupposes,  and  is  therefore  later  than,  the  Iliad.  The 
subject  of  the  one  certainly  presupposes  the  other.  But  there 
is  no  reference  in  the  Odyssey  to  the  Iliad.  The  current 
mythology  doubtless  embraced  the  tales  of  the  Trojan  war  and 
of  the  return  of  the  Greeks  before  either  Odyssey  or  Iliad  waa 
composed  ;  and  this  is  all  that  either  presupposes.  The  Odyssey, 
again,  is  supposed  to  show  development  of  legend  ;  but  the  fluid 
8t^ite  of  myths  and  legends  makes  it  quite  possible  that  variants, 
or  even  different  stages,  of  a  legend's  growth  continued  to  exist 
aide  by  side.  Arguments  have  been  drawn  also  from  the  differ- 
1  See  Geddes,  Problem  of  the  Homeric  Poems,  52-60, 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  27 

ence  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  two  poems,  but  little  weight  is 
usually  given  to  them.  Finally,  geographical  knowledge  in  the 
Odyssey  is  said  to  be  wider,  and  consequently  later,  than  that  in 
the  Iliad.  But  the  Odyssey  gives  greater  scope  for  the  display 
of  such  knowledge ;  and  the  question  is  further  complicated  by 
the  fact  that  passages  which  are  quoted  by  the  one  side  are 
rejected  as  interpolations  by  the  other. 

But  the  ancient  doubts  whether  both  the  Odyssey  and  Iliad 
were  by  Homer  have  sunk  into  insignificance  by  the  side  of  the 
modern  doubts  whether  either  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey  is  by 
Homer — whether  there  was  ever  such  a  person  as  Homer — 
■whether  either  poem  is  by  one  author — whether  the  poems  are 
not  the  fortuitous  aggregate  of  unconnected  ballads — whether 
they  are  of  any  antiquity  at  all.  These  difficulties,  which  con- 
stitute the  modern  Homeric  question,  were  first  definitely 
raised  at  the  end  of  last  century,  and  to  Wolf  is  justly  due  the  — i-- 
honour  of  having  raised  them.-^  Friedrich  August  Wolf  was 
a  professor  in  Halle,  and  being  engaged  on  an  edition  of  the 
Iliad,  in  his  endeavours  to  gain  a  safe  standing-ground  from 
which  to  criticise  various  readings  and  to  emend  faulty  readings, 
he  was  led  to  inquire  of  himself  by  what  means  the  text  of 
Homer  had  come  down  to  us,  and  particularly  how  it  had  been 
transmitted  in  the  earliest  times.  He  found  that  not  only,  on 
the  current  view  of  the  great  antiquity  of  Homer,  was  it  ex- 
tremely diflicult  to  account  for  the  transmission  of  so  extensive 
a  text,  but  that  the  current  view  itself  was  based,  as  he  supposed, 
on  two  impossibilities.  First,  it  implies  the  existence  of  writing 
in  Homer's  time  ;  next,  it  implies  the  absence  of  any  diiferenca 
between  the  state  of  nature  existing  in  Homer's  time  and  the 
artificial  condition  of  later  Greek  civilisation. 

In  both  these  difficulties,  which  Wolf  stated  in  his  famous 
Prolegomena  to  Homer  (1795),  we  see  the  influence  of  the 
general  current  of  thought  of  the  eighteenth  century.  "  Ifature" 
had  been  brought  into  very  sharp  contrast  with  the  artificial 
complexity  of  modern  civilisation  by  Rousseau,  and  the  same 
contrast  was  sought  for  in  the  literature  of  early  and  "  natural" 
times  as  compared  with  the  productions  of  an  advanced  society. 

1  Before  "Wolf  learned  men  had  had  transient  doubts,  e.g.  Casaubon 
and  Perizonius,  whether  the  poems  were  originally  committed  to  writing ; 
Bentley,  whether  Homer  intended  the  poems  to  be  recited  as  wholes;  an 
Italian  scholar,  Vico,  had  denied  the  existence  of  Homer;  "Wood  (Essay 
on  the  Original  Genius  and  Writings  of  Homer,  1769)  had  raised  the  ques- 
tion of  the  antiquity  of  writing ;  Zoega  (1788)  had  called  attention  to  incon- 
sistencies in  the  poems ;  and  Herder  and  Heyne  contributed  to  the  compara- 
tive study  of  ballads  and  epics.  But  all  these  taken  together  do  not  impair 
the  originality  and  magnitude  of  Wolf's  achievement. 


28         HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Works  belonging  to  primitive  times  must,  like  the  ballade  ol 
our  own  early  literature,  be  short,  simple,  inartificial — in  fine, 
natural  With  the  advance  of  society  literary  compositions 
became  longer  and  more  complex,  and  as  the  resources  of  art 
accumulated,  vi^orks  of  art  became  more  artificial.  In  the 
Nihelungenlied  was  found  a  parallel  to  Greek  epics :  the  Nibe- 
,  lujigenlied  was  demonstrated  to  have  been  made  out  of  ballads, 
and  the  analogy  was  applied  to  the  Homeric  poems.  With  these 
views  on  the  history  of  literature,  there  could  be  no  hesitation 
in  concluding  that  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  in  their  present 
form,  belong  to  the  later  and  more  complex  period  of  literary 
development.  Parts  of  each  poem  may  belong  to  the  simpler 
and  earlier  period,  but  they  have  evidently  been  overlaid  by 
the  work  of  the  more  artificial  period. 

The  other  difficulty  which  Wolf  found  in  the  way  of  the 
popular  belief  in  the  great  antiquity  of  the  poems  as  we  have 
them,  resulted  from  applying  to  the  origin  of  the  Homeric 
poems  a  question  which  was  being  put,  with  equally  important 
results,  in  philosophy  with  regard  to  knowledge,  viz.,  how  is  it 
possible  ?  What  are  the  conditions  necessarily  involved  in  the 
supposition  that  the  poems  existed  in  times  of  great  antiquity? 
and  did  these  conditions,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  exist  ?  In  the  first 
place,  the  transmission  of  the  poems  for  many  centuries  implies 
the  existence  of  writing.  But  before,  say,  B.C.  700,  writing  did 
not  exist  in  Greece.  Either,  then,  the  current  view  is  wrong 
in  attributing  to  the  poems  a  greater  antiquity  than  B.C.  700; 
or,  if  the  poems  did  exist  before  that  date,  they  must  have  been 
short  and  simple  enough  to  be  committed  to  memory  and  trans- 
mitted orally.  And  the  latter  hypothesis  agrees  with  the  view 
that  the  poems  of  early  and  natural  times  were  simple  and  short. 

But  inasmiich  as  the  evidence  as  to  the  date  of  the  introduc- 
tion of  writing  into  Greece  is  scanty,  Wolf  brings  forth  another 
condition  which  is  indispensable  for  the  composition  of  such 
extensive  works  as  the  Iliad  and  the  Odysse}',  and  could  not 
have  existed  in  the  time  of  Homer.  An  artist  must  have  a 
public.  A  poet  writes  to  be  published.  Now,  whatever  the 
date  at  which  writing  was  introduced  into  Greece,  tlie  habit  of 
reading  was  not  established  until  very  late  times.  Homer,  that 
is  to  say,  composed  to  be  recited  and  heard,  not  to  be  read. 
But  no  audience  could  sit  through  a  reading  of  the  Iliad  or  the 
Odyssey,  each  consisting  of  twenty-four  books  and  over  9000 
verses.  Therefore,  to  the  impossibility  of  carrying  so  long  a 
work  in  the  memory  has  to  be  added  the  impossibility  of  ever 
finding  an  audience  for  so  long  a  poem.     But  if  there  was  no 


EPIC  poetry:  the  homekic  question.  29 

ftudience  to  be  had  for  such  a  work,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  no 
6uch  work  would  be  composed.  The  length  of  a  poem  in  those 
times  must  have  depended  on  the  conditions  under  which  it 
was  to  be  recited,  and  those  conditions  admitted  of  the  recita- 
tion of  short  poems  only.  Indeed,  we  know,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
that  in  historic  times,  when  Homer  was  recited  at  festivals,  it 
was  not  the  whole  Iliad  or  the  whole  Odyssey  that  was  given, 
but  only  short  portions  of  them  called  rhapsodies. 

We  may,  then,  sum  up  Wolf's  objections  to  the  common  view 
of  the  great  antiquity  of  Homer  thus  :  in  their  present  condition 
the  poems  are  not  of  the  short  and  simple  character  which  is 
the  mark  of  early  and  natural  literature,  and  they  are  too  long 
to  have  been  transmitted  by  memory  or  to  have  ever  even  found 
an  audience.  The  conclusion  he  drew  was  that  Homer — whose 
existence  and  genius  he  did  not  dispute — living  in  primitive 
times,  before  writing  was  in  common  use,  and  before  the  exist- 
ence of  a  reading  public,  could  not  have  composed  the  whole, 
but  only  parts,  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  as  we  have  them. 
The  rest  consists  of  additions  made  by  various  subsequent  poets 
and  professional  reciters  or  rhapsodists.  AYhich  parts  were  by 
Homer  and  which  by  later  hands,  Wolf  made  no  attempt  to  dis- 
cover, although  he  lived  for  many  years  after  framing  his  theory 
and  publishing  his  Prolegomena. 

There  remains  a  third  point  to  be  noticed  in  Wolf's  theory. 
If  Homer  did  not  commit  his  poems  to  writing,  and  if  the  pre- 
sent form  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  is  not  due  to  Homer,  by 
whom  were  the  poems  committed  to  writing,  and  to  whom  is 
their  present  form  due  ?  AVolf  f oresaAv  this  difficulty  and  pro- 
vided an  answer.  Pisistratus,  the  famous  tyrant  of  Athens, 
first  caused  the  poems  to  be  committed  to  writing.  He  also 
united  the  poems,  composed  by  different  hands  and  recited  indi- 
vidually, into  the  two  great  wholes  now  known  as  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey,  And  this  he  did  by  means  of  a  Commission  of  four 
•'  Diaskeuasts,"  whose  names,  according  to  Wolf,  were  Onoma- 
critus,  Orpheus  of  Croton,  Simonides,  and  Anacreon.  The  evi- 
dence for  these  statements  Wolf  found  in  passages  from  Cicero,^ 
Pausanias^  (an  antiquarian  who  flourished  about  a.d.  160), 
.^lian^  (whose  date  is  about  a.d.  180),  a  Life  of  Homer*  (author 
unknown,  date  late),  and  a  grammarian,  Diomedes  ^  (very  late). 
Although  these  writers  disagree  as  to  the  reason  why  Pisistratus 

1  De  Or.  iii.  137,  "primus  Homeri  libros,  confusos  antea,  sic  disposoissa 
dicitur  ut  nunc  habemus." 

2  vii.  26.  •  V.  H.  xiiL  14, 
*  In  Westermann's  Collection. 

^  In  Villoison,  Anecdota  Grseca,  ii.  183. 


30  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

caused  the  poems  to  be  edited  into  their  present  shape — soma 
say  it  was  because  previously  they  had  never  been  committed 
to  writing,  and  that  Pisistratus  gave  an  obol  for  every  line  any 
one  could  provide ;  others,  because  the  poems  had  suffered  from 
fires,  earthquakes,  and  floods,  and  were  therefore  much  scattered^ 
— still  they  all  maintain  the  present  form  to  be  due  to  Pisistra- 
tus ;  and  so  closely  does  their  language  in  this  respect  agree, 
that  it  seems  probable  they  either  copied  from  each  other  or 
from  some  common  source.  Since  Wolf's  time,  on  the  strength 
of  a  passage  in  Tzetzes  (a  Byzantian  grammarian,  date  about 
A.D.  1160),  the  names  of  the  four  Diaskeuasts  have  been  given 
as  Onomacritus,  Orpheus,  Zopyrus,  and  Epikonkylos  (the  last 
name  is  conjectural).  But  inasmuch  as  Tzetzes  is  separated  by 
an  interval  of  1700  years  from  the  time  he  was  writing  about, 
and  is  an  inaccurate  writer,  we  may  dismiss  him. 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  worth  of  Wolfs  authorities  for 
the  Commission  of  Pisistratus.  In  the  first  place,  they  are  none 
of  them  sufficiently  near  in  point  of  time  to  the  period  of  Pisis- 
tratus to  carry  any  great  weight.  Cicero,  the  earliest  of  them, 
lived  500  years  after  Pisistratus.  How  comes  it  that  during 
those  500  years  no  author  makes  mention  of  so  important  a 
fact  in  literary  history  1  Aristotle,  who  made  extensive  inves- 
-A  tigations  into  the  history  of  literature,  knows  nothing  of  this 
Commission,  or  of  any  other  form  of  Homer  than  that  we  pos- 
sess. The  Alexandrine  critics  of  this  period,  who  worked  so 
much  on  Homer,  know  nothing  of  it.  No  allusion  to  it  is  to 
be  found  in  Plato,  none  in  the  orators,  who  had  various  occa- 
sions in  their  speeches  when  they  would  gladly  have  claimed 
for  Athens  the  distinction  of  such  an  important  literary  achieve- 
ment had  they  known  of  it.  It  seems  improbable  that  such  a 
valuable  piece  of  information  should  have  escaped  so  maay 
eager  and  competent  students  for  half  a  millennium  and  then 
have  been  discovered  by  Cicero.     A  more  reasonable  explana- 

1  This  must  be  placed  to  the  credit  of  Diomedes,  the  grammarian.  He 
too  says  that  Pisistratus  invited  everybody  who  knevsr  any  Homer  to  contri- 
bute their  information,  and  paid  them  so  much  a  verse.  The  result  was 
that  some  sjiurious  verses — tlie  work  of  those,  we  may  conjecture,  "  qui  lineA 
denaria  scribebant" — were  sent  in,  and  they  are  now  marked  by  an  obelisk. 
Diomedes  then  proceeds  to  get  confused  apparently  between  the  revision  by 
Pisistratus  and  the  Septuagint,  for  he  says  that  Pisistratus  formed  a  com- 
mittee of  seventy-two  revisers  (each  paid  an  honorarium  worthy  of  learned 
critics),  who  set  to  work  separately  on  the  material  thus  provided  them,  and 
then  compared  their  results,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  tliat  the  best  version 
was  that  produced  by  Avistarchus,  the  next  best  that  of  Zenodotus  (Aristar- 
chus  and  Zenodotus  lived  about  400  years  after  Pisistratus).  This  is  intei* 
eating  aa  a  specimen  of  the  worth  of  Byzantine  learning. 


EPIC  poetry:  the  Homeric  question.  31 

tion  is  that  it  was  unknown  to  them,   because  it  was  only 
invented  after  their  time.^ 

The  common  source  of  all  these  stories  seems  to  be  an  inscrip- 
tion quoted  in  an  anonymous  Life  of  Homer,  and  there  said  to 
have  been  taken  from  a  statue  of  Pisistratus.  The  question 
then  arises  whether  the  inscription  was  taken  from  the  statue 
of  Pisistratus  ?  In  the  first  place,  the  Athenians'  hatred  of  the 
Pisistratidse  makes  it  unlikely  that  any  such  statue  was  erected 
in  memory  of  Pisistratus ;  and,  in  the  next  place,  the  words  of 
the  inscription  are  remarkable.  "  Thrice  tyrant,  thrice  the 
populace  of  Athens  expelled  me,  thrice  recalled  me,  the  great 
Pisistratus,  who  collected  Homer,  erewhile  sung  scatteredly," 
&c.  It  is  improbable  that,  in  an  inscription  intended  to  do 
honour  to  Pisistratus,  his  military  achievements  and  his  services 
to  religion  should  be  entirely  omitted,  while  his  repeated  ex- 
pulsions from  Athens — important  facts  in  his  life,  but  not  those 
which  his  heirs,  wishing  to  remain  tyrants  of  Athens,  would 
care  to  have  remembered — are  dwelt  upon.  And  what  is  the 
great  achievement  which,  according  to  the  inscription,  outweighs 
all  else  that  Pisistratus  did,  and  is  to  constitute  his  political 
rehabilitation  1  A  reform  of  the  text  of  Homer.  Assuming 
\hat  this  reform  was  the  work  of  Pisistratus,  we  certainly  never 
find  it  mentioned  by  any  historian,  orator,  or  other  writer  before 
Alexandrine  times,  either  as  an  extenuating  circumstance  in 
Pisistratus'  tyranny  or  in  any  other  way.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  know  that  the  royal  patronage  extended  in  Alexandrine 
times  by  the  Ptolemies  to  learning  produced  a  reacticm  in 
favour  of  discerning  tyrants,  and  that  the  composition  of  epi- 
grams was  a  favourite  exercise  amongst  the  literary  men  of 
Alexandria.  A  service  then  to  literature  was  precisely  the  one 
fact  which  an  Alexandrine  writer  would  regard  as  worth  record- 
ing in  an  epigram  on  Pisistratus. 

This  is  one  suggestion  as  to  the  origin  of  the  epigram  and 
the  stories  based  upon  it.  It  seems,  however,  more  plausible 
to  trace  the  epigram  to  the  rivalry  which  existed  between  the 
two  great  schools  of  learning,  Alexandria  and  Pergamum.  Cicero, 
in  whom  the  story,  as  far  as  we  can  trace  it,  first  appears,  had 
but  little  acquaintance  with  Alexandrian  learning.  On  the 
other  hand,  his  education  in  Rhodes  brought  him  under  the 

1  The  same  line  of  argument  maybe  applied  to  the  statement  that  Onoma- 
critus  was  one  of  the  members  of  the  Commission.  If  he  was,  how  is  it  that 
Herodotus  (vii.  6),  who  knows  that  Onomacritus  "  revised"  many  oracles  in 
the  interest  of  Pisistratus,  and  was  expelled  from  Athens  by  Hipparchus  for 
«,  less  acceptable  revision  of  Musseus'  oracles,  has  nothing  to  say  of  his  ver« 
sion  of  Homer? 


32  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

influence  of  the  Pergamum  school.  In  Rhodes,  Cicero  was  a 
pupil  of  Posidonius,  who  was  a  pupil  of  Pansetius,  who  again 
was  one  of  the  followers  of  Crates  of  Mallos,  the  founder  of  the 
Pergamum  school.  Thus  Cicero's  statement  about  Pisistratus 
seems  to  go  back  ultimately  rather  to  Pergamum  than  Alexan- 
dria, and  the  circumstances  which  there  gave  rise  to  the  story 
seem  to  have  consisted  in  the  desire  to  depreciate  Alexandria 
and  its  royal  patrons,  by  showing  that  there  was  nothing  so  very 
remarkable  in  learning  receiving  royal  patronage.  Even  so  long 
ago  as  the  time  of  Pisistratus  tyrants  interested  themselves  in 
literature.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  epigram,  in  whatever  spirit 
composed,  betrays  its  late  date  by  the  fact  that,  whereas  Pisis- 
tratus was  expelled  twice,  it  says  he  was  expelled  three  times. 

Thus  the  authorities  on  which  "Wolf  relied  for  proving  that 
the  present  shape  of  the  Homeric  poems  is  due  to  Pisistratus 
seem  to  have  their  source  in  an  epigram,  which,  whatever  the 
motives  for  composing  it,  is  certainly  untrustworthy.  Further, 
the  epigram  itself  gives  no  countenance  to  the  inference  which 
Cicero  and  other  later  writers  have  drawn  from  it,  viz.,  that 
Pisistratus  caused  a  recension  of  Homer  to  be  made.  The  epi- 
gram says  that  before  Pisistratus  Homer  was  "  sung  scatteredly." 
Now  we  know  on  good  authority — that  of  the  orators  Isocrates, 
B.C.  436-338,  and  Lycurgus,  B.C.  395-329 — that  the  singing 
of  the  rhapsodies  at  the  great  Athenian  festival  was  regulated 
by  law ;  but  who  introduced  the  law  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
known.  In  Alexandrian  times  it  certainly  was  a  matter  of 
conjecture  who  introduced  the  law ;  and  it  is  a  reasonable  in- 
ference that  in  the  epigram  of  which  we  are  speaking  we  have 
nothing  more  than  the  author's  conjecture,  stated  positively, 
that  the  law  was  due  to  Pisistratus. 

For  thirty  years  or  more  nothing  was  done  to  carry  out  the 
views  which  Wolf  had  expressed  in  his  Prolegomena  ;  and  yet, 
as  we  have  pointed  out,  although  Wolf  demonstrated  the  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  the  traditional  view  of  Homer,  he  con- 
tributed nothing  himself  toAvards  pointing  out  what  in  the 
poems  was  Homer's  work  and  what  was  not.  When  at  last, 
after  more  than  thirty  years,  Hermann  took  up  the  question, 
although  he  came  forward  with  a  criterion  by  which  to 
distinguish  the  original  parts  of  the  poems  from  subsequent 
accretions,  he  never  fully  can-ied  out  the  process  of  applying 
his  criterion.  But  more  important  is  it  to  notice  the  nature  of 
his  criterion,  and  the  change  of  view  which  it  involves.  For 
the  purpose  of  distinguishing  between  what  is  Homer  and  what 
is  later  than  Homer  in  the  poems,  inconsistencies  and  discre- 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  3  J 

pancies  are  important.  But  no  solution  of  this  part  of  the 
Homeric  question  can  be  satisfactory  which  explains  only  the 
inconsistencies.  The  general  consistency  of  the  poems  is  an 
equally  important  factor  in  the  problem,  and  a  satisfactory 
solution  must  account  for  the  consistency  as  well  as  the  incon- 
sistencies. The  natural  reaction  from  the  Wolfian  theory  took 
the  direction  of  insisting  on  the  importance  of  the  second 
factor,  and  it  is  in  the  explanation  of  this  factor  that  the 
importance  of  Hermann's  work  lies.  According  to  "Wolf,  the 
unity  of  the  poems  was,  as  it  were,  mechanically  superinduced 
by  the  Commission  of  Pisistratus.  According  to  Hermann,  if 
the  poems  in  their  present  shape  possess  unity,  it  is  because  the 
original  kernel  possessed  unity.  Homer  sang  of  the  wrath  of 
Aciiilles  and  the  return  of  Odysseus  in  two  poems,  short  enough 
to  be  carried  in  the  memory  and  transmitted  orally,  and  these 
poems  contained  in  outline  the  essential  structure  of  our  Iliad 
and  Odyssey.  In  the  process  of  time  later  poets  inserted 
various  compositions  of  their  own,  expanding  incidents  in  the 
original  work,  and  interpolating,  so  far  as  the  original  permitted, 
other  incidents,  and  made  the  expansions  and  interpolations  fit 
in  with  more  or  less  neatness.  Thus  Hermann  provided  a  solu- 
tion capable  of  accounting  for  both  the  general  unity  and  the 
particular  discrepancies,  though  he  did  not  or  could  not  work  it 
out  so  as  to  recover  the  original  poems.  It  should  also  be  noticed 
that  on  Hermann's  theory  Homer  is  not  regarded  as  a  rude  and 
primitive  bard,  but  as  possessing  architectonic  genius. 

The  next  attempt  to  solve  the  Homeric  problem  on  the  lines 
laid  out  by  Wolf  was  that  of  Lachmann.  Starting  on  the  assump- 
tion that  in  primitive  times  only  short  lays  were  possible,  he 
first  attacked  the  N ibelungenlied,  and  dissected  it  into  twenty 
lays.  He  then  in  the  same  way  dissected  the  Iliad  into  eighteen 
lays.  The  principle  upon  which  he  proceeds  is  that  primitive 
poets  anxiously  avoid  the  least  inconsistency  in  details ;  thus, 
if  we  find  an  inconsistency  between  any  two  parts  of  the  Iliad, 
we  may  conclude  that  these  parts  belong  to  different  lays. 
The  lay  has  no  inconsistencies  within  itself.  Thus  Lachmann 
proceeded  considerably  farther  than  Wolf ;  for  Wolf  allowed 
Homer  some  share  in  the  composition  of  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey,  while  Lachmann  disintegrated  the  Iliad  into  lays 
which  were  composed  quite  independently  of  each  other,  and 
became  more  or  less  fortuitously  agglomerated  together  in 
course  of  time,  and  were  finally  worked  into  the  Iliad  as  we 
have  it  by  Onomacritus,  acting  for  Pisistratus. 

With  regard  to  Lachmann's  theory,  it  should  be  noticed  that 

Q 


34  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

any  support  it  may  have  once  derived  from  the  dissection  of  the 
Nibehmgenlied  is  much  weakened  now,  since  there  is  consider- 
able reason  to  believe  that  that  poem  is  the  work  of  one  author, 
and  not  an  aggregate  of  lays.  In  the  next  place,  analogies  drawn 
from  the  literatures  of  other  countries  have  to  be  used  with  cir- 
cumspection. The  origin  of  the  Mahdhhdrata  is  disputed.  The 
French  chansons  are  not  epics  ;  and  the  literary  genius  of  Greece 
is  hardly  to  be  measured  by  restrictions  drawn  from  the  analogy 
of  a  Finnish  epic — the  Kalewala.  Setting  aside  these  presump- 
tions based  on  analogies,  we  have  to  examine  Lachmann's  theory 
in  itself.  In  the  first  place,  we  may  use  the  argumentum  ad 
Jiominem.  If  Lachuiann  regards  an  inconsistency  as  proof  of 
divided  authorship,  why  does  he  not  subdivide  those  of  his 
lays  which  contain  inconsistencies  in  themselves  ?  His  principle 
rigorously  carried  out  would  necessitate  the  supposition  of  a 
larger  number  of  lays  than  that  which  he  has  resolved  the  Iliad 
into.  And  this  is  one  fundamental  weakness  of  the  theory — 
it  lacks  any  vestige  of  proof.  The  same  principle  applied  by 
another  hand  would  discover  a  different  set  of  lays,  and  have  as 
much  claim  to  represent  the  primitive  elements  of  the  Iliad  as 
the  eighteen  lays  Lachmann  has  produced.  In  other  words,  of 
the  two  things  which  require  explaining  in  the  Homeric  poems — 
their  unity  and  their  inconsistencies — Lachmann  overlooks  one 
— the  unity — and  only  offers  for  the  other  an  explanation  wholly 
incapable  of  proof,  and  not  even  consistently  carried  out  by 
himself.^  Thus  his  theory  distinctly  falls  behind  the  advance 
which  Hermann  had  made  towards  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
Hermann  recognised  the  double  aspect  of  the  question,  and 
put  forward  u  theory  which  at  least  endeavoured  to  meet  both 
points.  Lachmann  sought  a  one-sided  solution,  and  in  framing 
a  hypothesis  to  account  for  all  the  inconsistencies,  he  lost  sight 
of  the  other  factor  in  the  problem,  or  imagined  that  Onoma- 
critus  and  Pisistratus  were  capable  of  accounting  for  what  unity 
the  Iliad  possesses. 

But  we  have  already  seen  that  there  is  no  historical  proof  of 
the  existence  of  the  Commission  of  Pisistratus,  and  we  n-ay 
now  ask  whether  the  supposition  of  such  a  Commission  is 
capable  of  accounting  for  the  unity  of  the  Iliad.  In  the  first 
place,  inasmuch  as  "  diaskeuasts "  have  been  credited  with 
much  activity  in  the  shaping  of  the  Homeric  poems,  it  is  well 

1  Another  serious  diffioiilty  in  the  way  of  his  theory  is  that  of  iinderstand- 
irg  how  eighteen  different  jioets,  working  independently  and  in  ignorance 
of  each  other's  work,  sliould  all  liapjien  to  choose  for  their  subject  some 
incidcni  relating  to  the  few  days  of  Achilles'  absence  from  the  war. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  3  5 

to  understand  who  diaskeuasts  were.  They  were  not  a  class  of 
men  united  or  distinguished  by  the  possession  of  any  special 
experience  or  innate  powers  of  working  up  given  material  into 
epic  shape.  If  a  playwright  touched  up  or  re-wrote  a  play 
of  his  own,  already  performed,  with  a  view  to  producing  it  a 
second  time,  he  was  said  to  diaskeuazein  or  revise  his  play. 
But,  more  than  this,  any  man  who  made  a  correction  in  a 
manuscript  was  a  diaskeuast ;  and  if  the  "correction"  was 
wrong,  he  was  none  the  less  a  diaskeuast.  So  to  say  that  the 
shaping  of  the  Iliad  was  the  work  of  diaskeuasts  may  be  true, 
but  it  does  not  help  us  much,  for  any  man  could  be  a  dias- 
keuast, but  not  every  man  could  make  an  Iliad  out  of  given 
material.  On  Lachmann's  theory,  indeed,  it  would  require  an 
artist  of  consummate  skill  to  give  to  eighteen  wholly  inde- 
pendent lays  the  amount  of  consistency  and  unity  which  the 
Iliad  possesses.  Thus  the  mechanical  device  of  a  Commission  is 
inadequate  to  the  purpose.  What  is  required  is  a  poet  of  no 
mean  rank,  and  Lachmann  gives  us,  with  no  satisfactory  proof, 
Onomacritus,  who  spent  his  life  on  Orphic  poetry,  and  would 
have  worked  up  his  material  in  accordance  with  his  training  in 
Orphic  poetry,  whereas  no  Orphic  elements  are  to  be  traced  in 
our  Iliad. 

"We  may  further  ask  what  object  could  Pisistratus  have  had 
in  amalgamating  separate  lays  into  one  whole  ?  It  could  not 
have  been  in  the  interests  of  literature,  for,  according  to  Lach- 
mann, the  separate  lays  are  more  beautiful  than  our  Iliad. 
And  further,  if  this  was  the  case,  how  did  Pisistratus  contrive 
to  supplant  the  older,  better  known,  and  more  beautiful  lays 
by  his  novel  amalgamation  ?  His  authority  extended  only  to 
Athens,  but  all  Greece  accepted  the  Iliad  as  we  have  it.  If  we 
waive  this  difficulty,  the  question  still  remains  what  was  the 
object  of  the  amalgamation,  since  it  was  not  to  benefit  literature  t 
Pisistratus,  we  have  seen,  was  apparently  believed  by  some  to 
have  regulated  the  text  for  purposes  of  recitation ;  but  the 
short  lays  which  Lachmann  supposes  to  have  existed  would 
be  much  better  adapted  for  recitation  than  our  Iliad,  and  to 
amalgamate  these  lays  into  a  lengthy  whole  would  not  rendei 
their  recitation  the  easier. 

"We  next  come  to  the  views  put  forward  by  the  great  his- 
torian of  Greece,  Grote.  The  question  which  "Wolf  had  sug- 
gested, but  had  not  attempted  to  solve,  viz.,  what  is  Homer's 
work,  and  what  is  not,  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  Grote  took  up 
and  answered.  But  in  other  respects  he  is  not  a  follower  of 
"Wolf.     The  assumption,  universally  accepted  last  century,  that 


36  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

primitive  poems  or  lays  must  be  short,  Qrote  did  not  accept 
He  quotes  from  Chodsko's  Pojmlar  Poetry  of  Persia  the  fact 
that  "  one  of  the  songs  of  the  Cahnuck  national  bards  sometimes 
lasts  a  whole  day ; "  and  refers  to  the  fact,  which  had  been  pre- 
viously used  by  Lachmann,  that  the  old  German  poem  Parsifal 
contains  24,810  verses,  and  was  the  work  of  a  man,  Eschenbach, 
who  could  neither  read  nor  write.  Thus  the  composition  of  the 
Iliad  or  the  Odyssey  before  writing  was  known  in  Greece  hap 
nothing  impossible  in  it.  Nor  has  the  oral  transmission  of  the 
poems ;  the  songs  of  the  Icelandic  Skalds  were  thus  trans- 
mitted for  more  than  two  centuries  ;  and  we  may  add  that  the 
Vedas  were  transmitted  in  this  way  for  a  much  longer  period. 
In  modern  Greece  blind  singers  carry  in  their  memory  large 
quantities  of  verse  which  they  recite  at  village  feasts.  Fur- 
ther, if  Homer  was,  as  the  oldest  traditions  relate,  blind,  writ- 
ing, even  if  known  in  his  time,  would  have  been  of  no  use 
to  him.  In  anticipation  of  the  objection  that  the  power  of 
memory  might  not  be  so  great  among  the  Greeks  as  among 
other  nations,  Grote  refers  to  the  fact  that  in  Socrates'  time, 
as  we  learn  from  Xenophon,  there  were  many  Athenians 
who  were  taught  to  learn  both  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  by 
heart,  and  the  rhapsodists  professionally  repeated  the  poems 
from  memory. 

Having  thus  cleared  the  ground,  and  shown  that  there  is  no 
impossibility  in  composing  and  transmitting.poems  of  the  length 
of  our  Iliad  and  Odyssey  by  means  of  memory  alone,  Grote 
proceeds  to  investigate  the  question  of  the  original  unity  of 
these  epics  on  critical  grounds,  and  he  begins  with  the  Odyssey. 
The  question  at  issue  is,  as  he  says,  whether  the  gaps  and  in- 
consistencies which  constitute  the  proofs  "  of  mere  unprepared 
coalescence  "  preponderate  "  over  the  other  proofs  of  designed 
adaptation  scattered  throughout  the  whole  poem  1 "  The  con- 
clusion he  reaches  ivS,  "The  poem  as  it  now  stands  exhibits 
unequivocally  adaptation  of  parts  and  continuity  of  structure, 
whether  by  one  or  several  consentient  hands.  It  may,  perhaps, 
be  a  secondary  formation  out  of  a  pre-existing  Odyssey  of 
smaller  dimensions ;  but  if  so,  the  parts  of  the  smaller  whole 
must  have  been  so  far  recast  as  to  make  them  suitable  members 
of  the  larger,  and  are  noway  recognisable  by  us."  Further, 
"  Its  authors  cannot  have  been  mere  compilers  of  pre-existing 
materials,  such  as  Pisistratus  and  his  friends ;  they  must  have 
been  poets,  competent  to  work  such  matter  as  they  found  into 
a  new  antl  enlarged  design  of  their  own." 

The  Odys«ey,  then,  is  itself  a  proof  of  the  falsity  of  the  assump* 


EPICrOETRY:    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  37 

tion  that  "  long  continuous  epics  "with  an  artistical  structuro 
are  inconsistent  with  tlie  capacities  of  a  rude  and  non-writing 
age,"  for  in  the  Odyssey  "  the  integration  of  the  whole  and  the 
composition  of  the  parts  must  have  been  simultaneous."  Grote 
then  applies  the  same  critical  method  to  the  Iliad.  Here  he 
finds  that  the  original  scheme  of  the  Iliad,  viz.,  to  relate 
the  wrath  of  Achilles  and  its  consequences — does  not  com- 
prehend the  whole  poem.  Those  books  which  carry  out  the 
original  scheme  hang  together  by  themselves.  Those  books 
(ii.  to  vii.)  which  do  not  relate  to  the  original  schema 
hang  on  the  whole  fairly  Avell  together,  but  present  dis- 
crepancies with  the  first  set.  The  portion  of  the  Iliad  which 
has  direct  relation  to  the  original  scheme,  as  expounded  in 
the  opening  lines  of  the  First  Book,  Grote  called  an  Achilleis. 
Tlie  other  books  "are  of  a  wider  and  more  comprehensive 
character,  and  convert  the  poem  from  an  Achilleis  into  an 
Iliad."  They  give  us,  not  any  information  about  the  wrath 
of  Achilles,  but  a  picture  of  the  war  against  Ilium.  They 
have  been  worked  into  a  certain  conformity  with  the  Achilleis, 
and  "  they  belong  to  the  same  generation  and  state  of  society 
as  the  primitive  Achilleis."  Finally,  Grote  thinks  that  the 
Odyssey  and  Iliad  belong  to  the  same  age,  but  are  not  by 
the  same  author ;  that  the  Odyssey  is  probably  by  a  single 
author,  the  Iliad  probably  not. 

"VVe  may  now  see  how  far  Grote  has  laid  the  difficulties  raised 
by  Wolf.  The  assumption  that  primitive  poems  must  be  short 
seems  to  break  down  under  the  attack  made  upon  it  by  Grote 
and  others.  As  for  analogies  drawn  from  other  literatures,  even 
were  the  fact  of  a  ballad  origin  for  epics  established.  Homer's 
spiritual  and  intellectual  superiority  over  the  balladists  makes 
comparison  unsafe.  But  the  other  difficitlty  raised  by  Wolf, 
viz.,  as  to  the  possibility  of  the  composition  of  such  poems  as 
our  Iliad  and  Odyssey  in  times  when  writing  was  unknown, 
is  not  answered  by  Grote.  Everything  Grote  says  about  the 
possibility  of  composing  and  transmitting  long  poems  by  means 
of  the  memory  alone  may  be  admitted,  and  must  always  be 
taken  into  account  in  any  solution  of  the  Homeric  question  ; 
but  Homer  composed,  as  Grote  admits,  not  for  a  reading  public 
— there  was  none — but  for  recitation  before  an  audience  ;  and 
although  the  Athenians  in  later  times  would  sit  for  a  whole 
day  listening  to  the  performance  of  tragedies,  a  day  would  not 
suffice  for  the  recitation  of  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey.  Thus, 
though  the  bare  possibility  of  composing  the  poems  without  the 
aid  of  writing  is  fully  established  by  Grote,  his  admission  of 


38  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

the  non-existence  of  a  reading  public  leaves  the  difficulty  raised 
by  Wolf  unsolved. 

But  this  failure  to  shake  Wolf's  main  position,  so  far  from 
weakening  Grote's  theory  of  the  Iliad,  rather  strengthens  it. 
If  Wolf  was  right  in  denying  the  possibility  of  composing  long 
poems  in  very  early  times,  then  Grote's  Achilleis  is  a  step  in  the 
right  direction  ;  and  as  a  solution  of  the  problem  how  the  Iliad 
as  we  have  it  arose,  it  is  superior  to  Lachmann's  lays.  Grote'a 
theory  does  what  Lachmann's  failed  to  do — it  explains  the 
general  consistency  of  the  poem.  But  unless  there  is  some 
external  necessity  compelling  us  to  suppose  that  originally  the 
Iliad  must  have  been  shorter  than  it  now  is,  Grote's  theory  is 
open  to  the  oVjjection  which  may  be  alleged  against  all  attempts 
to  extract  the  original  from  the  present  Iliad — it  is  subjec- 
tive. The  weight  assigned  to  discrepancies  or  to  proofs  of  design 
will  always  depend  on  the  critic  :  there  is  no  external  standard 
whereby  to  ascertain  their  real  weight,  and  consequently  no  hope 
of  settling  the  question. 

Since  Grote,  the  most  important  "  variety "  of  the  Wolfian 
theory  that  has  arisen  is  the  view  of  Professor  Paley.  With 
Wolf,  but  more  strongly  than  Wolf,  he  insists  on  the  late  date 
of  writing,  and  on  the  still  later  date  at  which  a  reading  public 
came  into  existence.  But,  unlike  the  Wolfians,  he  insists  on  the 
unity  of  the  Iliad.  Thus  he  reaches  the  conclusion  that  the 
Iliad  is  posterior  to  the  growth  of  a  reading  public,  and  the 
latter  he  correctly  dates,  on  various  grounds,  as  extending  from 
about  B.C.  430  on.  He  does  not  seem  to  believe  in  an  original 
nucleus  around  which  other  stories  kept  Vcoliecting,  or  in  a 
theory  of  interpolations.  The  Iliad  is  not  the  fortuitous  work 
of  time,  nor  the  deliberate  work  of  successive  generations,  but 
the  design  and  execution  of  a  single  mind  working  on  ancient 
material.  The  Iliad,  he  says,  may  "  be  aptly  compared  to  a 
stained-glass  window  composed  from  a  quantity  of  old  materials, 
more  or  less  detached  and  of  different  dates,  but  rearranged 
and  filled  in  with  modern  glazier's  work,  so  as  to  form  a  har- 
monious whole,  by  some  cunning  artist  who  had  an  eye  for 
unity  of  design,  harmony  of  colour,  and  a  general  antique 
effect."  The  proofs  of  this  theory  are  to  be  found  in  the  non- 
existence of  a  reading  public  before  B.C.  430  ;  in  the  absence, 
from  the  Tragedians  and  from  early  works  of  art,  of  any  signs  of 
the  influence  of  Homer ;  in  the  general  absence  of  references  to 
Homer  ^  in  Greek  literature  before  Plato,  and  in  the  sudden 

*  References  to  "  Homer  "  do  indeed  occur;  but  Homeri  was  a  name  useJ 
to  cover  nearly  anything  written  iu  hexameters.  Professor  Paley's  poiut  i« 
thftt  references  to  our  Homer  are  not  found. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  39 

display  of  acquaintance  Avith  Homer  in  Plato  and  later  authors  ; 
and,  finally,  in  the  language  of  Homer,  whicli  shows,  hoth  in 
grammar  and  vocabulary,  a  thorough  mixture  of  old  and  new, 
of  genuine  and  spurious  archaisms,  which  seem  to  imply  that 
the  dialect  was  not  a  living  or  spoken,  but  a  conventional  one. 

The  argument  based  by  Mr.  Paley  on  the  evidence  of  works 
of  art  is  one  for  specialists  to  discuss,  and  it  is  enough  here  to 
say  that  it  is  a  question  on  which  specialists  disagree.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  argument  based  on  the  evidence  of 
language.  But  we  may  add  that  the  words,  formations,  gram- 
matical usages,  and  the  omissions  of  the  digamma  which  Mr. 
Paley  cites  to  show  the  late  character  of  our  Homer,  have  been 
paralleled  by  Dr.  Hayman  (in  his  edition  of  the  Odyssey)  in 
the  oldest  Greek  literature  that  we  possess ;  while  Mr.  Monro 
has  pointed  out  (in  his  article  on  Homer  in  the  Encyclopoidia 
Britannica)  the  leading  features  which  stamp  the  dialect  of 
Homer  as  the  oldest  form  of  the  Greek  language  that  we  possess. 
The  fact  that  Pindar  and  the  Tragedians  seem  to  have  preferred 
to  draw  on  the  Cyclic  Poets  instead  of  on  Homer  for  subjects, 
does  not  compel  us  to  infer  that  our  Homer  was  unknown  to 
them.  There  are  two  good  reasons  to  explain  the  fact.  The 
first  is  one  pointed  out  by  Aristotle  :  the  plots  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  are  so  simple  that  they  only  admit  of  being  dramatised 
in  one  or  two  ways.  The  second  reason  is  that  Pindar  and  the 
Tragedians  were  too  wise  to  challenge  comparison  with  Homer 
on  his  own  ground,  and  were  too  artistic  to  endeavour  to  "  paint 
the  lily  or  gild  refined  gold."  Finally,  if  Homer  is,  as  Mr. 
Paley  seems  to  maintain,  a  compilation,  is  the  work  of  a  jobber 
of  ancient  literature,  is,  in  fact,  a  sham  literary  antique,  there 
is  only  one  period  to  which  it  could  be  assigned,  and  that  is 
the  post-classical  period.  In  B.c.  420  nothing  of  the  kind 
could  become  as  popular  as  Homer  undoubtedly  was,  as  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  Antimachus  of  Colophon  did  compose 
an  imitation  epic,  and  the  Greek  public  refused  to  be  put  off 
with  such  patchwork.  But  our  Homer,  as  Mr.  Paley  admits, 
was  composed  before  post-classical  times,  and  we  may  be  sure 
that  in  classical  Greek  literature  the  only  period  capable  of  pro- 
ducing a  great  epic  was  the  epic  period.  Antimachus  himself 
certainly  did  not  compile  our  Homer,  as  Mr.  Paley  suggests, 
for  we  know  from  Porphyrins  that  he  plagiarised  our  Homer. 

There  remains  a  difficulty  raised  by  Wolf  against  the  anti- 
quity of  Homer  which  we  have  left  untouched — that  of  under- 
Btanding  how  poems  as  long  as  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  could 
have  been  recited.     A  single  recitation,  it  is  said,  would  not 


40  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

suffice.  This  is  true  ;  and  the  inference  is  that  the  poems  wew 
designed  to  last  through  several  recitations.  This  simple  ex- 
planation has  long  escaped  recognition  because  we  are  apt  to 
forget  that  all  classical  Greek  literature  was  desigHfed  iji  i^t- 
citation,  and  that  at  different  times  the  manner  of  recitation 
differed.  In  the  times  when  an  author's  audience  consisted  of 
the  whole  body  of  citizens  (in  the  time,  e.g.,  of  the  drama  or  of 
choral  lyric),  an  audience  was  only  got  together  at  long  inter- 
vals, and  therefore  what  was  put  before  it  had  to  be  finished 
at  a  sitting.  But  in  Homeric  times  the  poet's  audience  con- 
sisted of  the  household  of  a  chieftain  such  as  Odysseus  or  of  a 
king  like  Alcinous ;  and  this  audience  gathered  together  night 
after  night.  There  is,  therefore,  nothing  in  the  conditions  under 
which  epic  poetry  was  produced  to  make  the  recitation  of  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  impossible. 

Attempts  have  frequently  been  made  to  show  that  one  part 
of  the  Iliad  or  of  the  Odyssey  is  inconsistent  with  some  other 
part,  and  therefore  could  not  have  been  composed  by  the  same 
author.  But,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  still  more  unlikely  that  an 
interpolator,  whose  first  business  would  be  to  make  his  inter- 
polation harmonise  with  the  original,  would  make  these  mis- 
takes ;  and  next,  there  are  inconsistencies  to  be  found  in 
Milton,  Shakspere,  Dante,  Virgil,  and  novelists  of  all  kinds, 
quite  as  great  as  in  Homer.  A  logical  inconsistency  goes  for 
little  in  these  questions ;  and  a  poetical  inconsistency  yet 
remains  to  be  discovered  in  Homer.  We  can  only  protest 
against  the  spirit  in  which  some  critics  approach  the  greatest  of 
poets.  They  examine  the  Homeric  poems  as  they  would  a 
candidate's  dissertation  for  a  degree,  and  have  no  hesitation  in 
rejecting  the  author  of  the  Iliad  and  tteDdyssey  for  not  know- 
ing his  Homer. 

The  question  whether  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  are  both 
the  work  of  a  single  hand  admits  of  no  positive  proof.  If  it 
could  be  demonstrated  by  internal  evidence  that  they  must 
belong  to  different  ages,  the  question  would  be  settled.  But 
there  is  nothing  in  the  poems  to  show  that  they  do  not 
belong  to  the  same  age ;  and  although  we  cannot  say  that 
Greece  was  incapable  of  producing  two  poets  possessing  the 
marvellous  genius  required  to  produce  such  a  poem  as  the  Iliad 
or  the  Odyssey,  it  seems  safer  to  adhere  to  the  literary  tradition, 
which  is  not  on  the  whole  likely  to  have  been  mistaken  on 
such  a  point  of  capital  importance,  and  which  attiibutes  both 
the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  to  Homer. 


EPIC  POETRY :   THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION. 


41 


APPENDIX  TO  CHAPTER  III. 


READING,  WRITING,  AND  PUBLICATION  IN  CLASSICAL  GREEK  TIMES. 


All  alphabets  and  syllabaries,  ex- 
cept the  Sanskrit  alphabet,  seem  to 
have  had  their  origin  in  picture- 
writing.  The  idea  of  communicat- 
ing information  by  rough  sketches 
of  objects  occurs  sooner  or  later  to 
most  peoples.  The  Red  Indians 
by  means  of  sketches  on  bark  can 
or  could  send  simple  messages  to 
each  other,  as,  e.g.,  the  number  of 
an  advancing  enemy.  In  these 
messages  a  man  is  drawn  in  much 
the  same  way  as  schoolboys  draw 
men  on  a  slate — a  big  circle  sur- 
mounted by  a  smaller  one  and  rest- 
ing on  two  more  or  less  perpendi- 
cular strokes.  If  the  figure  is 
represented  with  a  hat,  it  stands 
for  a  white  man ;  if  not,  for  a  red 
man.  The  signature  and  address 
are  conveyed  by  sketches  of  the 
creatures  which  the  chiefs  have 
adopted  as  totems  and  taken  their 
names  from-  The  picture-writing 
of  the  Aztecs,  though  still  sketch- 
ing, was  capable  of  expressing  more 
ideas  and  more  abstract  ideas  than 
that  of  the  Red  Indians.  This  was 
the  result  of  the  continual  use  of 
picture-writing  for  the  purposes  of 
governing  a  large  and  heterogeneous 
empire  and  for  recording  its  history. 
The  next  stage  in  the  development 
is  when  the  sketch  comes  to  be  re- 
garded not  so  much  as  a  picture  of 
the  object  depicted  as  the  symbol 
of  the  same  of  the  object ;  and  by 
the  time  the  signification  of  the 
sketch  has  become  conventionalised, 
the  sketch  has  generally  ceased  to 
have  any  great  resemblance  to  the 
natural  object,  and  is  itself  a  con- 
ventional symbol.  This  stage  is 
represented  by  the  214  "radicals  " 
in  Chinese.  These  characters,  which 
by  themselves,  and  in  composition 
with  other  marks,  form  the  written 


symbols  of  every  word  in  the  Ian* 
guage,  are  not  letters,  nor  syllables, 
but  each  is  a  word.  The  next  stage 
is  reached  when  the  character,  hav- 
ing long  represented  merely  the 
sound  of  the  object's  name,  comes 
to  stand  for  the  sound  of  the  first 
syllable  only.  In  this  stage  writing 
consists  of  a  collection  of  symbols 
representing  the  sound  of  syllables, 
that  is,  a  syllabary.  This  is  repre- 
sented by  the  cuneiform  or  arrow- 
headed  inscriptions,  which,  like  the 
Chinese  "radicals,"  are  descendants 
from  sketches.  The  uniform  and 
generally  rectangular  appearance  of 
cuneiform  inscriptions  is  a  marked 
instance  of  the  influence  exercised 
by  the  nature  of  the  writing  material 
on  the  form  of  the  writing  itself. 
Straight  strokes  thicker  at  one  end 
than  at  the  other  are  the  natural 
result  of  rapid  writing  with  a  pointed 
instrument  on  clay.  Using  such 
writing  materials,  the  Assyrians  fol- 
lowed the  line  of  least  resistance 
and  eliminated  curves.  Finally, 
the  character  which  at  first  stood 
for  the  whole  word  and  then  for 
the  first  syllable  came  to  stand  for 
the  first  letter,  and  an  alphabet  wag 
attained.  We  have  illustrated  the 
development  of  the  alphabet  from 
the  writing  of  various  nations,  but 
in  Egyptian  all  these  stages  co-exist. 
Some  characters  stand  for  a  word, 
some  for  a  syllable,  and  some  for  a 
letter,  thus  clearly  indicating  the 
origin  of  alphabets. 

From  the  Egyptians  the  Phoeni- 
cians obtained  their  alphabet,  from 
the  Phoenicians  the  Greeks,  from 
the  Greeks  the  Romans,  from  them 
modern  European  nations.  The 
source  from  which  the  various  Greek 
alphabets  were  derived  is  indicated 
partly  by  tradition,  for  the  Greeki 


42 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


attributed  the  alphabet  to  Cadmus, 
whose  name  is  Semitic  ("Kedem," 
Eastern),  partly  by  the  form  of 
the  letters  themselves  and  partly 
by  the  names  of  the  letters.  When 
borrowed,  the  alphabet  necessarily 
underwent  some  changes,  since  the 
Phcenician  alphabet  contained  sym- 
bols of  sounds  not  used  by  the 
Greeks  (e.g.,  several  sibilants),  and 
in  Greek  there  were  vowel  sounds 
not  known  to  the  Phoenicians.  We 
have,  however,  to  do  not  with  the 
history  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  but 
its  date.  The  names  of  the  Greek 
letters  which  end  in  the  "  emphatic 
aleph  "  (contrast,  e.g.,  beta,  the  Greek 
name  for  B,  with  the  Hebrew  betk), 
show  that  the  alphabet  was  bor- 
rowed from  the  northern  Semites, 
those  of  Tyre  and  Sidon  ;  and  it 
has  been  argued  that  the  borrowing 
must  belong  to  the  period  of  the 
Phcenicians'  naval  and  commercial 
supremacy  over  the  Mediterranean. 
So,  too,  it  has  been  argued  that  the 
borrowing  by  the  Italians  from  the 
Greeks  must  be  referred  to  Greeco- 
Italic  times,  i.e.,  the  time  when  the 
Greeks  and  Italians  yet  formed  one 
people.  But  in  these  remote  ages 
we  get  out  of  our  chronological 
depth,  and  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing,  at  any  rate  at  present, 
what  "must"  have  happened  or 
when.  It  is  better  to  say  that 
these  data  are  uncertain  in  them- 
selves and  give  a  general  presump- 
tion of  antiquity  to  the  introduction 
of  the  alphabet,  which  must,  how- 
ever, wait  upon  better  established 
facts.  For  these  facts  we  may  look 
either  to  ancient  Greek  authors 
themselves  or  to  inscriptions.  For 
instance,  if  Homer  mentioned  writ- 
ing, and  the  date  of  Homer  were 
fixed,  we  should  get  a  date  for  writ- 
ing. As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  a 
well-known  passage  in  the  Iliad 
(vi.  169)  in  which  it  is  said  that 
Proitos  sent  Bellerophon  to  Lycia, 
"  and  gave  him  tokens  of  woe, 
graving  in  a  golden  tablet  many 
deadly  things,  and  bade  him  show 
these  to  Auteia's  father,   that   he 


might  be  slain."  But,  as  we  hava 
seen,  there  are  more  ways  of  sending 
a  message  than  by  means  of  an 
alphabet ;  so  the  passage  is  not 
conclusive.  In  the  next  place,  the 
passage  may  have  been  tampered 
with  ;  and  finally,  as  the  date  of 
Homer  is  vague,  it  does  not  help 
us  much  to  date  the  alphabet. 

The  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
utilising  Homer  to  date  the  alpha- 
bet are  applicable  to  all  passages 
from  ancient  authors.  When  wa 
go  farther  back  than  B.C.  500,  the 
dates  assigned  to  authors  become 
hard  to  check  ;  and  there  is  alwaya 
the  possibility — which  may  or  may 
not  amount  to  a  probability — that 
the  passage  relied  on  may  not  be 
genuine.  With  inscriptions,  how- 
ever, we  are  on  safer  grounds  :  they 
do  not  admit  much  of  interpolation, 
and  we  may  rely  on  their  being 
now  in  the  shape — the  action  of 
time  and  weather  excepted  —  in 
which  they  came  from  the  sculptor's 
hands.  Forgery  is,  indeed,  possible 
even  on  stone,  but  much  less  likely 
than  in  the  case  of  MSS.  But  in- 
scriptions get  destroyed,  and  the 
earlier  their  age  the  fewer  survive. 
In  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  indeed, 
which  has  the  least  destructive 
climate  in  the  world,  inscriptions 
of  enormous  antiquity  do  of  course 
survive,  but  it  is  not  on  the  banks 
of  the  Nile  that  we  can  expect  to 
find  Greek  inscriptions.  And  yet 
it  is  there  we  find  the  oldest 
inscription  in  Greek  that  is  yet 
known  or  can  be  dated. 

On  the  banks  of  the  Kile  in 
Nubia  is  the  temple  of  Abu  Simbel. 
In  the  temple  of  Abu  Simbel  are 
huge  statues  of  stone,  and  on  the 
legs  of  the  second  colossus  from  the 
south  are  chipped  the  names,  witti- 
cisms, and  records  of  travellers  of  all 
ages,  in  alphabets  known  and  un- 
knowm.  The  earliest  of  the  Greek 
travellers  who  have  thus  left  their 
names  are  a  body  of  mercenaries. 
They  seem  to  have  formed  partof  the 
expedition  which  was  led  as  far  aa 
Elephantine  by  King  Psarunatichoa 


EPIC  POETKY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION. 


4^ 


•^whether  the  first  monarch  of  that 
name  or  his  successor  does  not 
appear.  1  From  Elephantine  tliey 
seem  to  have  set  out  on  a  voyage 
of  discovery  up  the  river,  and  to 
have  gone  past  Kerkis — the  locality 
of  which  cannot  be  fixed — as  far  as 
the  stream  allowed,  perhaps  to  the 
second  cataract.  On  their  return 
they  put  in  at  Abu  Simbel,  and  on 
the  left  leg  of  the  colossus  inscribed 
the  record  of  their  bold  voyage. 
1  besides  the  common  record,  we  find 
the  names  of  various  members  of 
the  detachment  inscribed  separately 
by  those  who  wished  at  once  to 
display  their  ability  to  write  and 
to  perpetuate  to  all  time  their  con- 
nection with  the  expedition. 

This  interesting  inscription  can 
be  dated  by  two  methods,  which 
check  each  other,  and  thus  give 
tolerable  certainty  to  the  result. 
In  the  first  place,  the  letters  used, 
and  their  shape,  show  that  the 
inscription  is  older  than  inscrip- 
tions, generically  similar,  which 
are  known  to  belong  to  about  B.C. 
540.  For  instance,  in  our  inscrip- 
tion there  is  no  special  symbol  for 
the  long  0  of  the  Greek  alphabet, 
the   omega.      One   and   the    same 


symbol  lias  to  do  duty  for  the  long 
and  for  the  short  o.  Inscriptions 
of  B.C.  540  have  acquired  a  special 
symbol  for  the  omega.  As  we  have 
already  said,  the  Greeks,  possessing 
a  more  extensive  vowel  system  than 
the  Pliceniciaiis,  had  to  modify  the 
alphabet  they  borrowed ;  and  the 
late  origin  of  the  sign  for  the  omega 
is  betrayed  by  that  letter's  position 
in  the  Greek  alphabet.  As  for  the 
shape  of  the  letters  in  the  Abu 
Simbel  inscription,  the  sign  for  s, 
instead  of  being  made  with  four 
strokes,  as  in  the  sigma  of  the  B.C. 
540  inscriptions  and  that  of  the 
ordinary  Greek  alphabet  (2),  is 
made  by  means  of  three  strokes 
only,  which  is  known  on  other 
grounds  to  be  the  older  form. 
Thus  the  epigraphic  evidence  makes 
the  inscription  to  be  some  time 
older  than  B.C.  540.  The  evidence 
from  the  contents  of  the  inscription 
places  the  date  between  B.C.  620- 
600,  according  as  we  take  the 
Psammatichos  mentioned  to  be  the 
first  or  the  second  king  of  that 
name.^ 

We  have,  then,  got  a  date  for  the 
existence  of  writing  in  Greece.  In 
B.C.  600  the  art  of  writing  was  so 


1  A  Rhodian  pinax,  discovered  lately  at  Naukratis,  which  probably  belongs 
to  the  time  of  Psammatichos  II.,  shows  ejiigraphic  peculiarities  resembling 
those  of  the  Abu  Simbel  inscriptions.  See  Mr.  E.  A-  Gardner  in  the  Academy, 
No.  700. 

2  This  inscription,  having  a  bearing  on  the  Homeric  question,  has  been  dis- 
credited. As  for  the  epigraphic  evidence,  it  is  said  that  it  is  inconclusive 
because  against  the  evidences  given  above  that  the  inscription  belongs  to  B.C. 
600,  we  have  to  set  the  fact  that  the  writing  runs  from  left  to  right,  whereas 
it  was  only  later  than  this  period  that  this  direction  was  adopted.  In  the 
next  place,  we  have  a  distinct  sign  for  eta,  which  is  again  a  later  introduction. 
As  for  the  contents,  the  fact  tliat  in  the  inscription  there  appears  not  only 
a  King  Psammatichos,  but  a  mercenary — the  commander  of  the  exploring 
detachment — of  the  same  name,  points  to  tlie  inscription's  being  a  "hoax." 
But  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  Ionic  alphabet,  the  only  evidence  we  have 
whether  the  sign  for  eta  was  current  in  B.C.  600  is  our  inscription.  We 
cannot  reject  it  because  we  have  no  other  of  B.C.  600.  If  we  go  beyond  the 
Ionic  alphabet,  we  find  that  in  Thera  this  sign  was  used  about  B.C.  600. 
So  too  with  regard  to  the  direction  of  the  writing  :  the  left  to  right  direc- 
tion only  became  general  in  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  but  exceptions  before 
that  period  occur.  This  is  one.  As  for  the  "hoax"  theory,  it  implies  a 
knowledge  of  the  early  history  of  the  Greek  alphabet  which  probably  not 
even  a  learned  Greek  possessed,  and  may  be  on  the  whole  safely  denied  to 
a  practical  joker. 


44 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


well  established  in  fireece  that  in 
a  detachment  of  mercenaries  a  cer- 
tain number  could  write.  There  is, 
however,  another  point  to  notice  : 
the  names  of  these  soldiers  show 
that  they  came  from  different  parts 
of  Greece,  some  beinf:c  lonians, 
others  Dorians ;  but  all  use  the 
same  Ionic  alphabet.  This  means 
that  not  only  was  writing  well 
enough  established  for  Greeks  from 
all  parts  of  Greece  to  possess  the 
art,  but  also  that  since  the  intro- 
duction of  writing  enough  time 
had  elapsed  for  the  Ionic  alphabet 
to  spread  and  to  become  common 
amongst  theDorian-speakingpeoples 
in  the  south-west  of  Asia  Minor. 
"What  amount  of  time  we  ought  to 
allow  for  these  things  to  come 
about,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Low 
races  at  the  present  day  pick  up 
writing  very  quickly  from  our 
colonists  ;  and  amongst  the  quick- 
witted Greeks  it  would  spread  very 
rapidly.  Instead  of  losing  our- 
selves in  conjectures,  let  us  look 
for  evidence. 

Since  writing  had  in  B.C.  600 
been  known  for  some  time  in  Greece, 
a  passage  in  a  Greek  author  older 
than  B.C.  600  that  refers  to  writing 
is  not,  from  the  mere  fact  of  such 
reference,  suspicious.  Now  in  Ar- 
chilochus,  who  is  generally  supposed 
roughly  to  have  lived  about  B.C. 
700,  there  is  a  reference  to  writing. 
Archilochus  had  a  great  faculty  for 
saying  unpleasant  things,  and  he 
used  fables  of  his  own  invention 
with  great  effect.  With  regard  to 
one  of  these  fables  he  speaks  meta- 
phorically of  "a  grievous  sky  tale." 
A  slytale  was  a  staff  on  which  a 
strip  of  leather  for  writing  pur- 
poses was  rolled  slant-wise.  A 
message  was  then  written  on  the 
leather ;  the  leather  was  then  un- 
rolled and  given  to  the  messenger. 
Now  if  tlie  messenger  were  inter- 
cepted, the  message  could  not  be 
deciphered,  for  only  when  the 
leather  was  rolled  on  a  staff  pre- 
cisely the  same  size  as  the  proper 
one  would  the  letters  come  ri'dit. 


Such  a  staff,  of  course,  the  recipient 
by  arrangement  possessed.  This 
primitive  method  of  cipher  con- 
tinued to  be  used  a  long  time  by 
the  Spartans  for  conveying  state 
messages.  To  return  to  ArcLilo- 
chus  :  the  leather  from  the  skytali 
was  without  the  staff  an  enigma ; 
the  key  to  the  enigma  was  the 
skytale.  The  fable  of  Archilaihus 
was  to  outward  appearance  innocent 
of  any  recondite  meaning,  but  was 
a  "grievous  skytale"  for  the  person 
attacked. 

It  seems  reasonable  to  accept  this 
passage  as  indicating  a  knowledge 
of  writing  in  Greece  about  B.C.  700. 
This  date  allows  a  century  for  the 
diffusion  of  the  art  and  the  spread 
of  the  Ionic  alphabet  which  are 
implied  by  the  Abu  Simbel  inscrip- 
tion ;  and  the  passage  does  not 
prove  too  much.  It  does  not  im- 
ply even  that  Archilochus  himself 
could  write.  The  invention  or  in- 
troduction was  sufficiently  novel 
and  admirable  to  furnish  a  poet 
with  a  metaphor  ;  and  the  skytali 
was  probably  then,  as  in  later  times, 
a  governmental  institution.  Thus 
the  mention  of  a  skytale  accords 
with  the  probable  supposition  that 
writing  was  used  for  governmental 
purposes  before  it  became  common 
among  the  people. 

But  the  knowledge  that  writing 
was  known  in  Greece  in  B.C.  700 
is  not  sufficient  for  our  purpose. 
It  may  have  been  a  government 
monopoly,  or  at  any  rate,  so  little 
known  as  to  be  useless  for  literary 
purposes.  What  we  want  to  know 
is  first  when  a  reading  public  ex- 
isted. We  must,  however,  realise 
that  such  a  reading  public  as  exists 
at  the  present  time  was  never  known 
in  antiquity,  for  two  reasons  :  first, 
the  population,  and  consequently 
the  possible  number  of  readers,  waa 
much  less  in  the  city-states  of  the 
ancient  world  than  in  the  nation- 
states  of  modern  history  ;  secondly, 
ancient  authors  could  not  reach 
their  public  by  any  means  of  pub- 
lication to  be  compared  with  the 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION. 


45 


printing-press.  Fn  rther,  the  means 
of  attaining  publicity  were  more 
restricted  in  classi;al  Greek  times 
tlian  in  Rome.  The  large  number 
of  literary  slaves  in  Rome  made 
the  multiplication  of  manuscripts 
easy,  and  cheapene  i  and  extended 
their  sale.  In  Grsece,  multiplica- 
tion was  less  rapid  and  circulation 
more  restricted.  Recognising  then 
the  limited  extent  of  the  Greek 
reading  public  in  classical  times, 
we  have  to  see  what  evidence  there 
is  for  its  existence  at  all ;  and  we 
may  regard  its  existence  as  satis- 
factorily proved  when  we  find  trade 
in  books  going  on.  Now  we  find  a 
book-market'  mentioned  in  Eupolis, 
that  is  to  say,  existing  between  B.C. 
430  and  B.C.  405.  The  trade  in 
books  thus  indicated  may  also  be 
illustrated  by  a  passage  from  Xeno- 
phon  (who  lived  about  B.C.  444- 
355),  in  which  he  says,  that  from 
a  ship  wrecked  at  Salmydessus  on 
the  Poiitus  many  books  ^  were  re- 
covered. We  may  therefore  take 
it  as  reasonably  proved  that  a 
trade  in  books  existed  at  the  end 
of  the  fifth  century  B.C.  Other  in- 
dications of  a  reading  public  may 
be  found  in  Aristophanes,  who  in 
the  Tagenistce,^  speaking  of  a  j'oung 
man  gone  wi-ong,  ascribes  his  ruin 


to  "  a  book,  or  Prodicus,  or  bad 
company."  But  we  may  go  a  little 
farther  back.  In  fragments  of  the 
old  comedy  we  find  as  terms  cf 
abuse  such  expressions  as  "  an  un- 
lettered man,"  "a  man  who  does 
not  know  his  A,  B,  0."  *  And  the 
extent  of  education  thus  implied 
to  exist  about  B.C.  450  cannot  be 
regarded  with  su-pidon  when  we 
find  in  Herodotus  ^  that  boys' 
schools  existed  in  Chios  in  th« 
time  of  Histiaeus,  say  about  B.C. 
500. 

Before,  however,  inferring  the  ex- 
istence of  a  reading  public  in  B.C. 
500,  we  must  look  rather  more 
closely  at  our  evidence.  Reading 
and  writing  were  taught  BC.  500, 
and  to  be  unable  to  read  and  write 
was,  half  a  century  later,  a  thing  to 
be  ashamed  of.  But  this  does  not 
of  itself  prove  the  existence  of  a 
reading  public.  Enough  education 
to  be  able  to  keep  accounts,  to  read 
public  notices,  to  corresjjond  with 
friends  or  business  agents,  may 
have  been  in  the  possession  of  every 
free  Athenian  in  the  j)eriod  B.C.  500 
to  B.C.  450,  and  the  want  of  such 
education  may  have  caused  a  man 
to  be  sueered  at  ;  but  this  does  not 
prove  the  habit  of  reading  literature. 
There  is,  however,  a  passage  in  the 


^  oiJ  TO.  ^t^Xi'  &via„  Meineke,  F.  C.  ii.  550. 

'  :roXXai  ^i^Xoi  yeypajuifievai,   An.  VII.  v.  14. 

3  Fr.  3,  ■^  ^i^Xiov  5t€<p6opev  fj  UpoSiKos  ^  tQv  dSoXecrxtDi'  efs  yi  tls.  This 
passage,  and  the  general  proofs  that  reading  was  common  in  Aristophanes' 
time,  make  it  improbable  that  the  passage  in  the  Frogs,  11 14,  ^i^Xiov  t  ^x'^" 
?/ca(rros /xav^di'et  rd  Sefid,  is  rightly  regarded  by  Mr.  Paley  as  proving  read- 
ing to  be  a  novelty  in  B.C.  405.  On  the  contrary,  allowing  for  comic  exaggera- 
tion, it  shows  the  tabit  wns  extensive.  The  habit  of  reading  at  this  time  is 
Bhovrn  by  a  striking  and  important  passage  in  Xenophon,  Mem.  i.  6,  14,  rovi 
fiijaavpoiis  tCov  ircLKai  cxocpQp  avSpCsv.  oCs  eKelvoi  KariXLirov  iy  ^i^Xiois  ypdipa- 
i^es,  ave\lTTU3v  Koivy  cvv  toIs  <pi\ois  5L€pxonai,  sal  dv  ri  bpdixev  dyadon 
iKXeyo/xeda.  It  seems  from  this  that  not  only  were  Socrates  and  his  friends 
in  tlie  habit  of  reading  together,  but  that  the  habit  of  writing  books  was 
BuflBciently  well  fixed  for  them  to  ascribe  to  it  considerable  antiquity. 

Another  passage,  Plato,  Apol.  26  D,  wliich  has  been  taken  to  show  that  the 
physical  treatises  of  Anaxagoras  were  on  sale  in  the  theatre  (at  other  times 
than  those  of  theatrical  performances)  is  uncertain,  and  has  been  explained 
to  refer  to  theatrical  programmes. 

*  ' Ava\(pdpr]TO^,  iypafifiaros. 

^  vi.  27,  iraKTl  ypafifxara  bLbaVKOfiivoiffi.  ifiireae  tj  ariyti. 


46 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


lyric  fragments  of  the  poet  Theognis, 
who  flourished  even  still  earlier, 
that  is,  about  B.C.  550,  which  is  of 
much  importance  in  this  connection. 
Theognis  says  he  has  hit  on  a  de- 
Tice  which  will  prevent  his  verses 
being  appropriated  by  any  one  else  ; 
he  will  put  his  name  like  a  seal  on 
them,  and  so  no  one  will  take  in- 
ferior work  for  his  when  the  good  is 
to  be  had,  but  everybody  will  say, 
"  These  are  the  verses  of  Theognis 
the  Megarian."  This  passage  cer- 
tainly implies  that  Theognis  com- 
mitted his  works  to  writing ;  it 
also  implies  that  the  manuscript 
would  be  sufficiently  public  pro- 
perty to  make  it  impossible  either 
for  an  unscrupulous  person  to  claim 
to  be  the  author,  or  for  other 
people's  inferior  poetry  to  come  to 
be  attributed  to  Theognis.  But 
does  it  imply  that  Theognis  pub- 
lished for  a  reading  public  ?  that  is, 
caused  copies  of  his  MS.  to  be  mul- 
tiplied and  sold  or  distributed  to 
his  friends  ?  Before  answering  this 
question  we  must  ask  another.  If 
an  author  in  B.C.  550  did  not  pub- 
lish in  this  way,  how  did  he  pub- 
lish ? 

There  are  some  kinds  of  litera- 
ture which  at  the  present  day  are 
brought  before  the  public,  but  not 
by  means  of  the  printing-press. 
Sermons,  for  instance,  and  plays 
may  attain  much  publicity,  and  yet 
never  exist  out  of  manuscript,  and 
never  be  meant  to  be  printed.  This 
was  the  case  with  the  drama  and 
the  oratory  of  Athens.  Plays  and 
speeches  were  composed  for  the 
theatre  and  the  assembly ;  the 
authors — like  Shakspere,  it  seems — 
had  no  thought  of  reaching  their 
public  by  any  other  means.  But 
ibis  was  the  case  uot  only  with  the 
dramatists  and  orators  of  Greece 
in  classical  times,  but  with  writers 
of  all  kinds.  Lyric  authors  wrote 
either  choral  lyrics  which  were  to 
be  performed  in  public  at  some  fes- 


tival, or  songs  of  love  and  win* 
which  were  to  be  sung  over  the  J 
wine  after  dinner.  In  neither  case  \ 
was  it  an  existence  on  paper  which  ' 
the  lyric  poet  looked  to  for  hia 
work,  but  oral  delivery.  Now,  re- 
turning to  Theognis,  we  may  safely 
say  that  if  he  caused  copies  of  his 
MS.  to  be  multiplied  and  distri- 
buted, it  was  not  in  order  that  they 
might  be  read,  but  in  order  that 
his  friends  might  learn  them  and 
smg  them  at  drinking-parties  or 
other  social  gatherings.  In  othet 
words,  the  very  nature  of  Theog- 
nis' poetry  shows  that  it  was  not 
composed  for  a  reading  public. 

But  this  leaves  untouched  the 
question  whether  Theognis  did 
have  copies  of  his  MS.  multiplied 
and  distributed,  or  whether  the 
"  seal,"  which  he  prides  himself  on 
having  invented,  was  to  be  applied 
to  his  own  autograph  manuscript 
only.  There  is  nothing  in  his  words 
to  show  that  he  contemplated  the 
multiplication  of  copies  :  is  there 
anything  that  we  know  of  in  the 
conditions  under  which  he  wrote 
to  show  whether  he  was  thinking 
of  his  autograph  copy  or  of  a  larger 
number  ?  We  may  first  investigate 
what  is  implied  in  the  multiplica- 
tion of  manuscripts,  and  then  see 
whether  it  was  possible  in  B.C.  550 
to  publish  in  this  manner.  The 
first  condition  implied  in  multi- 
plying manuscripts  is  that  the 
means  of  writing  should  be  fairly 
cheap  and  not  cumbrous.  For 
writing  letters  in  ancient  times  the 
usual  materials  were  thin  wooden 
tablets,  the  surface  of  which  was 
covered  with  wax  ^  and  surrounded 
by  a  rim  such  as  surrounds  a  school- 
boy's slate.  On  this  wax  the  ^vritef 
wrote  by  means  of  a  pointed  instru- 
ment. These  tablets  were  called 
deltoi,^  and  the  VTiting  instrument 
was  called  by  the  Greeks  gniplns  01 
firapheion,^  by  the  Romans  stil'tt. 
Two  or  more  of  these  tablets  of  the 


Or  a  composition,  fidXda, 


^  Sf'Xrot. 


8  ypa(pli,  ypa(pe'u\v. 


EPIC  POETRY :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION. 


47 


same  size  might  be  fastened  together 
by  means  of  a  string  run  through 
holes  in  the  tablets.  Now,  on  a 
number  of  these  deHoi  an  author 
might  write  his  work,  but  to  mul- 
tiply and  circulate  copies  of  his 
productions  would  be  so  cumbrous 
that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
any  one  sought  or  gained  publicity 
by  such  means.  Still  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  Assyrians  car- 
ried on  business  and  formed  large 
libraries  out  of  even  more  unpro- 
mising writing  materials — slabs  of 
clay.  When  we  find  that  the  per- 
sons wishing  to  consult  a  book  in 
an  Assyrian  library  are  requested 
to  write  the  name  of  the  book  and 
its  author  on  a  proper  piece  of  clay 
and  hand  it  in  to  the  librarian,  we 
must  obviously  get  rid  of  some  of 
our  preconceived  notions  as  to  the 
material  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
circulating  waxed  tablets. 

But  although  waxed  tablets  may 
have  been  at  one  time  the  best 
means  the  Greeks  had  of  commit- 
ting their  thoughts  to  writing,  they 
•were  for  literary  purposes  eventually 
superseded  by  papyrus,  on  which 
the  scribe  wrote  with  a  reed-pen, 
calamus,^  and  ink,  melan,^  out  of  an 
inkstand,  melanodocheion,^  These 
were  materials  much  more  adapted 
for  literary  purposes  ;  and  if  we  as- 
sume that  authors  did  not  begin  to 
circulate  copies  of  their  works  until 
papyrus  was  common  in  Greece,  and 
if  we  can  date  the  introduction  of 
papyrus,  then  we  shall  have  a  date 
before  which  we  may  perhaps  deny 
the  multiplication  and  circulation 
of  manuscripts.     Now  papyrus  was 


known  and  used  for  writing  pur- 
poses in  Egypt  from  times  of  the 
greatest  antiquity  ;  and  it  has  been 
assumed  that  as  soon  as  the  Greeks 
had  any  commerce  with  Egypt  they 
would  at  once  adopt  this  conveni- 
ent writing  material  and  import  it 
largely.  This  may  have  been  the 
case,  but,  in  the  absence  of  evidence 
to  show  that  it  was,  we  ought  not 
to  build  on  the  supposition.  We 
must  look  for  something  more  trust- 
worthy, and  this  we  find  in  Hero- 
dotus. In  a  chapter  in  which  he 
traces  the  origin  and  history  of  the 
Greek  alphabet  in  a  manner  shown 
by  recent  epigraphical  researches  to 
be  correct,  Herodotus  declares  that 
from  of  old  *  the  lonians  had  used 
papyrus  for  writing  purposes.  Even 
if  we  decline  to  trust  Herodotus' 
information  on  this  point,  we  must 
at  any  rate  admit  that  papyrus  was 
so  much  in  use  in  his  day  that  there 
seemed  to  him  nothing  improbable 
in  its  having  been  in  use  for  a  long 
time  among  the  Greeks.  Tliat  is 
to  say,  papyrus  was  well  established 
in  B.C.  450. 

But  between  Herodotus,  B.C.  450, 
andTheognis,  B.C.  550,  is  a  century. 
In  B.C.  450  the  material  conditions 
admitted  of  the  multiplication  and 
circulation  of  works.  In  B.C.  550 
they  admitted  at  least  of  an  author's 
committing  his  works  to  writing, 
but  whether  at  this  time  an  author 
had  to  use  waxed  tablets  or  could 
use  papyrus,  we  can  hardly  say. 
But  this  century  is  precisely  the 
period  of  the  rise  of  prose  literature 
in  Greece,  and  it  may  be  said  that 
this  fact  in  itself  implies  that  litera- 


*  KaXafiot.  2  rb  /xeXav.  ^  fieXavoSoxeTop. 

*  V.  58,  Kal  Tas  /3iy/3Xoys  Sicpdepas  KoXiovai  dT6  tov  iraXaiov  oi  "lajvet, 
Stl  Kork  iv  (TirdvL  ^v^Xuv  ixp^<JivTo  BKpOeprjffl  ai-yerjal  re  Kal  Oierjfft. 
On  this  passage  Mr.  Paley  says,  "The  utmost  that  can  be  made  of  the  evi- 
dence is,  that  for  the  few  who  could  write  there  was  not  wanting  some 
material  to  write  upon.  But  the  insignificant  extent  of  such  literary  efforts 
must  be  inferred  from  the  absence  of  any  term  for  either  '  pen  '  or  'ink.''' 
But  if  the  Greeks  did  not  write  on  papyrus  with  pen  and  ink,  with  what  did 
they  write?  and  if  they  had  pens  and  ink,  of  what  value  is  the  fact  that  in 
the  literature  of  this  period  the  words  for  pen  and  ink  do  not  happen  t% 
occur? 


48 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


ture  could  be  and  was  circulated. 
An  orator  found  his  publicity  in 
the  assembly,  a  playwright  on  the 
stage,  a  lyric  poet  in  the  convivial 
gatherings  of  his  friends  ;  but  for 
what  public  except  a  reading  public 
could  a  philosopher  or  a  historian 
compose  ?  Here  again  we  must  try 
to  get  rid  of  some  of  our  pre-con- 
ceived  notions,  and  endeavour  to 
form  our  views  of  Greek  literature 
not  by  our  own  habits,  but  by  what 
we  know  of  Greek  life.  The  great- 
est of  Greek  philosophers,  Socrates, 
determined  the  current  of  Greek 
thought  and  the  philosophy  of  all 
time,  not  by  addressing  himself  to 
a  reading  public,  but  by  the  power 
of  the  living  word  ;  and  herein  Soc- 
rates exemplifies  the  Greek  mind. 
So  long  as  the  Greek,  whether  phi- 
losopher or  orator,  lyric  or  dramatic 
poet,  was  brought  into  living  con- 
tact with  his  fellow  Greeks,  so  long 
the  literature  of  Greece  was  sponta- 
neous, creative,  and  classic.  When 
the  audience,  whether  of  the  assem- 
bly, the  law  court,  the  theatre,  the 
symposium,  or  the  temple,  was  re- 
placed by  a  reading  public,  then 
the  Greek  mind  ceased  to  create, 
and  began  to  draw  its  inspiration, 
not  from  Nature  and  the  life  around 
it,  but  from  books.  It  became 
learned  and  imitative,  pedantic  and 
frigid.  If  Soci'ates  gave  much  to 
the  Athenians,  he  also  derived 
much  from  his  continual  attrition 
•«ith  them.  His  example  of  per- 
sonal intercourse  between  the 
teacher  and  the  taught  was,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  followed  by  Plato 
and  Aristotle.  They  composed  not 
primarily  for  a  reading  public,  but 
for  their  own  circle.  And  before 
their  time,  as  Plato  read  his  Phcedo 
to  his  friends  and  pupils,  so  Prota- 
goras read  his  treatise  on  the  gods 
in  the  house  of  Euripides  or  in  the 
Lyceum  ;  and  Socrates  had  listened 
to  Zeno  reading  his  works.  Hero- 
dotus read  portions  of  his  in  Atliena 
at  the  festival  of  the  Pauathenaia, 
while  at  01ymj)ia  such  readings 
were   specially   provided    for,    and 


not  only  Herodotus,  but  Gorgia^ 
Hippias,  and  Empedocles  there 
obtained  publicity  for  their  compo- 
sitions. 

It  seems,  then,  that  the  rise  of 
prose  literature  in  the  century  B.C. 
550  to  B.C.  450  does  not  necessitate 
the  assumption  of  the  existence  ol 
a  reading  public,  but  only  of  an 
audii-nce  to  listen  to  the  author 
reading  his  manuscript.  So  we 
may  sum  up  the  results,  so  far,  of 
our  inquiry  into  the  early  history 
of  reading,  writing,  and  publication 
as  follows : — In  B.C.  700  writing 
was  known  in  Greece,  as  appears 
from  the  metaphor  used  by  Archilo- 
chus  of  the  '''  grievous  skytale."  In 
B.C.  600  the  art  was  so  widely  spread, 
that  out  of  a  band  of  mercenaries 
from  all  parts  of  Greece,  a  certain 
portion  could  carve  their  names  on 
the  colossus  at  Abu  Simbel.  In 
B.C.  550  it  was  possible  forTheognia 
and  for  prose  writers  to  commit 
their  works  to  writing.  In  B.C.  500 
there  were  schools  in  Greece.  In  B.C. 
450  it  was  a  di.sgrace  to  be  unable 
to  read  and  write.  In  B.C.  420  we 
have  proof  of  the  existence  of  a 
reading  public  in  the  fact  that  there 
was  a  book  trade. 

And  now,  how  does  this  affect  the 
Homeric  question  ?  In  this  way  : 
The  epic  age — and  we  must  remem- 
ber that  although  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  are  the  only  epics  which 
have  come  down  to  us,  there  were 
many  other  epic  poems  which  sur- 
vived until  Alexandrine  times  at 
least,-— the  epic  age  ended  before 
B.C.  700,  and  we  have  no  evidence 
to  show  or  reason  to  believe  that 
writing  was  known  in  Greece  much 
before  that  date.  How  long  before 
B.C.  700  Homer  lived  we  do  not 
know.  Herodotus  conjectures  that 
he  lived  about  B.C.  850,  but  this 
is  only  a  conjecture,  and  as  we  do  not 
know  the  grounds  for  it,  we  cannot 
place  much  faith  in  it,  es]ieeially 
as  tlie  existence  of  such  a  jierson  as 
Homer  is  disputed.  At  any  rate, 
we  liave  no  reason  to  believe  that 
poets  of  the  epic  ago  could  commit 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION. 


49 


tlieir  works  to  writing,  however 
short  or  long  their  poems  were,  or 
transmit  them  except  by  word  of 
mouth.  It  seems  doubtful  indeed 
whether  the  means  of  writing  which 
were  in  use  among  the  Greeks  be- 
tween B.C.  700  and  B.C.  550  were 
enough  to  allow  of  the  transmission 
by  writing  of  any  considerable  body 
of  literature.  But  since  many  epics 
w.^re  somehow  transmitted  during 
this  period,  and  sin^e  before  b.c. 
700  they  apparently  must  have 
been  transmitted  by  word  of  mouth 
and  memory,  their  transmission 
does  not  seem  of  itself  to  prove  that 
wi'iting  was  used  B.C.  700  toB.c.  550 
for  literary  purposes. 

But  the  eifort  of  memory  required 
for  the  composition  and  transmis- 
sion of  poems  without  the  aid  of 
writing  has  not,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  itself  any  thing  incredible,  though 
it  implies  a  power  not  frequently 
manifested  among  us  who  live 
among  printed  books.  If  this  were 
the  only  difficulty  in  the  way  of  be- 
lieving that  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
were  composed  before  B.C.  700,  and 
transmitted  substantially  as  we 
have  them,  the  question  would  be 
settled.  Memory  was  equal  to  the 
task.  But  the  composition  of  a 
poem  implies  a  public  to  whom  the 
poem  is  to  be  given,  and  conditions 
under  which  it  is  brought  before 
that  public.  We  have  now  to  in- 
quire to  what  public  and  how  the 
epic  poets  addressed  themselves  ? 
To  find  an  answer  we  must  go  to 
the  Homeric  poems  themselves. 
Whatever  the  origin  and  growth  of 
these  poems,  all  inquirers  admit 
that  there  is  embodied  in  them 
much  that  is  ancient  and  much 
that  reflects  the  life  and  manners 
of  the  time  before  B.C.  700.  We 
may  therefore  reasouabl}'  seek  to 
find  out  from  them  the  position  of 
poets  in  the  earliest  times.  Now 
we  find  bards  mentioned  several 
times  in  the  Odyssey,  and  they  are 
always  conceived  of  as  attached  to 
a  great  house  or  a  royal  court ;  and 
they  are  always  represented  as  re- 


citing their  poems  over  the  con- 
clusion of  a  meal.  Thus,  attached 
to  the  court  of  King  Alcinous  was 
the  minstrel  Demodocus,  "  whom 
the  Muse  loved  dearly,  and  she 
gave  him  both  good  and  evil ;  of 
his  sight  she  reft  him,  but  granted 
him  sweet  song."  In  the  house  of 
Odysseus  there  was  Phemius  the 
minstrel ;  and  King  Agamemnon 
left  his  wife  Clytemestra  under  the 
care  of  a  minstrel, "  whom  the  son  of 
Atreus  straitly  charged,  as  he  went 
to  Troy,  to  have  a  care  of  his  wite." 
The  audience,  therefore,  to  which 
the  minstrel  addressed  himself  was 
that  to  be  found  in  a  great  house 
or  a  royal  court.  Odysseus  says  to 
King  Alcinous,  "Kay,  as  for  me,  I 
say  that  there  is  no  moi-e  gracious 
or  perfect  delight  than  when  a 
whole  people  make  merry,  and  the 
men  sit  orderly  at  feast  in  the  halls 
and  listen  to  the  singer,  and  tables 
by  them  are  laden  with  bread  and 
flesh,  and  a  wine-bearer  drawing  the 
wine  serves  it  round  and  pours 
it  into  the  cups."  To  his  audience 
the  minstrel  might  sing  either  lays 
he  had  learnt  from  others  or  his 
own  poems.  Phemius  says,  "  None 
has  taught  me  but  myself,  and  the 
god  has  put  into  my  heart  all  man- 
ner of  lays,  and  methinks  I  sing  to 
thee  as  a  god.  " 

Such  being  the  audience  for  which 
an  epic  poet  composed,  and  such 
the  conditions  under  which  he  pro- 
duced his  work,  the  question  now 
arises  whether — granted  a  poet  cap- 
able of  composing  the  Iliad  or  the 
Odysse)',  and  of  carrying  the  poem 
in  his  head — there  is  anj'thing  in 
these  conditions  to  make  the  de- 
livery of  so  long  a  poem  impossible  ? 
Obviously  it  would  be  impossible 
to  finish  the  recitation  in  a  single 
evening ;  and  Wolf  argued  that 
this  proved  that  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  could  not  have  been  origi- 
nally of  anything  like  their  present 
length.  But  is  it  impossible  to 
suppose  that  the  poet  took  up  the 
thread  of  his  story  one  evening 
where  he  had  dropped  it  the  previ- 
D 


io 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


ons  evening  ?  If  it  is  possible  for 
us  to  put  down  a  book  one  day  and 
take  it  up  again  the  next,  and  not 
lose  the  thread  of  the  story,  there 
is  no  difficulty  in  imagining  the 
epic  poet's  audience  listening  one 
night  to  a  story  commenced  on  some 
previous  night.'  The  Arabians,  at 
any  rate,  found  nothing  impossible 
in  supposing  a  Caliph  listening  to 
tales  in  this  way  tor  a  thousand 
and  one  nights.  The  ancient  Greek 
seems  to  have  experienced  the  same 
temptation  as  the  modern  novel- 
reader  to  sit  up  all  night  over  an 
interesting  work,  for  when  Odysseus 
breaks  ott'  relating  his  adventures 
to  the  Phseacians  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  time  for  sleep,  Alcinous, 
who  compares  him  to  a  minstrel, 
says,  "  Behold  the  night  is  of  great 
length,  unspeakable,  and  the  time 
for  sleep  in  the  hall  is  not  yet  ; 
tell  me  therefore  of  those  wondrous 
deeds.  I  could  abide  even  till  the 
bright  dawn,  so  long  as  thou  couldst 
endure  to  rehearse  me  these  woes  of 
thine  in  the  hall."  And  if  Odysseus 
proceeds  to  finish  his  tale,  it  is  not 
because  the  Phseacians  would  have 
refused  to  listen  to  its  conclusion  the 
following  evening,  but  because  he 
wished  to  return  to  Ithaca  as  soon 
as  he  might. 

So  far  then  as  concerns  the  audi- 
ence and  the  manner  of  reciting  his 
works,  the  epic  poet  might  well 
have  composed  a  poem  too  long  to 
be  finish  ^d  in  a  single  sitting.  And 
we  have  seen  that  poems  of  great 
length  can  be  composed  and  trans- 
mitted without  the  aid  of  WTiting. 
It  seems,  therefore,  that  the  difficul- 
ties raised  by  Wolf  against  the  com- 
position of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odys- 
sey in  their  present  form  are  not 
BufUcicntly  great  to  exclude  the  hy- 
pothesis that  we  have  the  Homeric 
poems  substantially  as  they  were 
originally  composed.      This,   how- 


ever, is  only  a  negative  conclusion  ; 
when  the  poems  were  as  a  matter  of 
fact  composed,  and  whether  since 
then  they  have  remained  substanti* 
ally  unaltered,  are  questions  which 
have  yet  to  be  answered.  There 
remain  a  couple  of  subjects  to  be 
briefly  noticed  before  this  chapter 
can  be  completed.  First,  there  ia 
the  method  of  recitation  in  post- 
epic  times  ;  second,  the  question  by 
whom  were  the  poems  transmitted  ? 
So  long  as  the  royal  and  aristo- 
cratic form  of  society  described  in 
the  Homeric  poems  existed,  so  long 
the  mode  of  recitation  also  described 
in  Homer  would  last.  But  with 
changes  in  the  social  and  political 
systems  of  Greece,  changes  would 
also  come  about  in  the  audience  and 
the  manner  of  addressing  the  audi- 
ence. The  epic  age  was  succeeded 
by  the  period  of  lyric  poetry,  and 
the  lyric  poets  fall  roughly  into  the 
two  classes  of  poets  who  composed 
personal  lyrics  designed  for  recita- 
tion before  the  circle  of  their  ovra 
aristocratic  friends,  and  of  poets 
who  composed  choral  lyrics  to  be 
performed  at  the  expense  of  a  tj^rant 
or  a  government  before  an  audience 
consisting,  not  of  a  narrow  circle, 
but  of  the  whole  population  of  the 
city.  The  political  conditions  that 
rendered  possible  the  oligarchical 
society  for  which  personal  lyrics 
were  composed  differed  from  those 
described  in  Homer.  Royalty  had 
disappeared,  and  the  aristocracy 
were  engaged  iu  a  struggle  with  the 
people  for  their  privileges  ;  but  the 
audiences  in  an  aristocracy  were 
but  little  different  from  those  in 
the  regal  times  of  Homer.  They 
were  more  restricted ;  the  royal 
hospitality  of  old  times  had  given 
way  to  the  exclusive  narrowness  of 
good  society  ;  and  the  class  interests 
of  the  audience,  being  shared  by  the 
poet,  who  was  himself  a  member  of 


1  Indeed  the  Scholiast  to  Od.  iii.  267  says,  i»  re  rats  ioprah  fv  re  ratt 
iyawavaecnv  IttI  woWas  T]/i^pas  vvWeyS/xevoi  rovruv  iJKovov,  et  ttou  iin((>avit 
fiyovev  fi  KoKbv  ?pyov. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION. 


51 


their  society,  tended  to  injuriously 
■ffect,  both  directly  and  by  the  re- 
action of  audience  on  author,  the 
character  of  the  lyrics. 

But  in  the  main,  the  conditions 
under  which  epics  were  recited  re- 
mained the  same  as  in  the  previous 
period,  though,  as  the  epic  age  was 
over,  the  reciters  were  no  longer 
authors,  or  at  any  rate  authors  of 
epics.  But  when  oligarchy  was 
overthrown  by  either  a  tyrant  or  a 
democracy,  the  nature  of  the  de- 
mand for  epic  recitation  changed, 
and  along  with  it  the  character  of 
the  supply.  Tyrants  and  demo- 
cracies alike  catered  for  the  amuse- 
ment, not  of  a  restricted  circle,  but 
of  the  whole  free  population  of  a 
city.  This  is  shown  by  the  char- 
acter of  the  literature  which  suc- 
ceeded personal  lyrics.  The  very 
essence  of  choral  lyric  is,  that  it  was 
performed  in  public  on  the  occasion 
of  some  public  festival,  whether  of 
religious  worship  or  of  general  re- 
joicing over  the  honour  brought  to 
the  city  by  the  triumph  of  some 
citizen  at  one  of  the  national  games 
of  Greece.  Now,  whereas  a  royal 
household  or  a  circle  of  friends 
might  be  gathered  together  night 
after  night,  and  thus  give  the  epic 
poet  the  opportunity  of  reciting  a 
poem  which  required  several  sit- 
tings for  its  recitation  in  full,  the 
whole  population  of  a  city  could 
only  be  gathered  together  from 
time  to  time,  and  the  occasions 
were  separated  by  periods  too  long 
to  admit  of  a  recitation  being  re- 
sumed, when  interrupted  by  the 
dispersal  of  the  audience  for  an  un- 
certain period.  The  result  of  this 
cl  ange  in  the  conditions  was,  as  we 
have  said,  a  change  in  the  method 
of  recitation.  An  epic  poem  was 
no  longer  recited  as  a  whole,  but 
those  parts  of  it  which  could  be 
detached,  and  which  were  tolerably 


complete  in  themselves,  were  re- 
cited at  public  festivals.  The  por- 
tions thus  chosen  were  called 
"rhapsodies,"  and  those  who  de- 
claimed them  were  called  "  rhap- 
sodists."  The  word  "  rhapsodist  " 
simply  means  "  singer  of  verses."  ^ 

The  inferences  just  drawn  from 
the  nature  of  the  lyric  poety  of  the 
sixth  century  B.C.  as  to  the  method 
of  reciting  e})ic  poetry  in  that  cen- 
tury are  confirmed  in  two  ways.  In 
the  first  place,  we  know  on  other 
evidence  that  rhapsodies  were  por- 
tions of  a  length  suitable  for  recita- 
tion at  public  festivals  ;  and  in  the 
next,  we  find  it  is  precisely  in  the 
sixth  century  that  rhapsodists  first 
begin  to  be  known.  The  earliest 
notice  of  rhapsodists  is  the  mention 
of  them  in  Herodotus  ^  as  existing 
in  Sicyon  in  the  time  of  the  tyrant 
Cleisthenes  (b.c.  600-560).  Prizes 
were  offered  at  festivals  by  the  vari- 
ous cities  of  Greece  to  the  rhapsodi.st 
who  declaimed  best ;  and  conse- 
quently there  soon  rose  a  class  of 
professional  rhapsodists,  who  tra- 
velled from  place  to  place  to  de- 
claim epic  poetry.  The  change 
which  thus  came  over  the  mode  of 
recitation  is  easy  to  understand, 
and  is  still  testified  to  by  the  Eng- 
lish meaning  of  the  word  "rhap- 
sody." Reading  in  a  room  to  a 
limited  audience  is  a  much  more 
subdued  performance  than  is  decla- 
mation in  the  open  air  to  a  large 
number  of  people  ;  and  we  know 
that  the  declamation  of  the  rhapso- 
dists was  theatrical  and  sensational, 
effects  being  sought  after  by  gesture 
and  inflection  of  the  voice,  which 
were  unknown  in  earlier  times,  and 
were  condemned  by  good  critics 
in  later  periods.  The  rhapsodists 
continued  to  declaim  epic  poetry 
until  the  latest  classical  times  ;  and 
at  Athens  at  least  their  recitation 
of  Homer,  who  alone  of  poets  was 


^  Pindar,  Nem.   ii.   i,    'Ofiyjpidai  pairruiv  iiriuv  doidoi,   sons    of   Homei 
singers  of  stitched  verses.     Words  are  metaphorically  said  to  be  stitched 
together  into  verses,  and  the  word  pa\f/-ifd6s  is  derived  from  pdirrdi,  to  stitch, 
and  dM56s,  a  singer.  ^  V.  67 


52 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


allowed  to  be  recited  at  the  Pana- 
thenaea,  was  regulated  by  law,  pro- 
bably in  the  fifth  century  B.o.  The 
rhapsodists  contending  at  the  fes- 
tival, if  left  to  choose  their  own 
selections,  would  probably  all  have 
chosen  much  the  same  pieces — those 
they  knew  the  audience  liked  best. 
The  law  therefore  determined  that 
the  competitors  should  follow  the 
order  of  the  poem,  and  that  one 
rhapsodist  should  take  up  the  reci- 
tation where  the  last  one  left  off. 
Thus  the  audience,instead  of  hearing 
the  same  piece  over  and  over  again, 
heard  a  considerable  part,  if  not  the 
whole  of  the  poem. 

It  remains  for  us  now,  having 
seen  the  way  in  which  epic  poetry 
was  recited  in  post-epic  times,  to 
briefly  consider  the  way  in  which  it 
was  transmitted.  During  most,  if  not 
all  of  the  period  of  the  rhapsodists, 
writing  was  probably  sufficiently 
developed  in  Greece  for  epic  poetry 
to  be  safely  transmitted  on  tablets 
or  papyrus  ;  so  that  we  need  not 
trust  to  the  memory  of  the  rhap- 
sodists for  the  transmission  of  epics. 
But  there  remains  the  time  before 
the  rhapsodists,  before  B.C.  600  ; 
and  to  account  for  the  transmis- 
sion of  Homer,  the  Homeridse,  sons 
of  Homer,  have  been  much  used. 
They  have  also  been  used  to  account 
for  the  expansion  of  the  "  original  " 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  to  their  present 
length  ;  and  they  have  further  been 
used  to  account  for  Homer  himself. 
It  has  been  supposed,  that  is  to 
say,  that  the  Homeridse  were  a 
guild  of  epic  poets,  working  on 
common  artistic  methods  and  com- 
mon literary  principles,  who  jointly 
produced  epics  which  they  ascribed 
to  the  mythical  founder  of  their 
guild,  Homer.  We  may  compare 
them,  in  their  descent  from  a 
mythical  eponymous  founder,  to 
the  hereditary  heralds  at  Sparta, 
who  claimed  to  be  descended  from 


the  hero  Talthybius.  In  theil 
common  literary  methods  we  might 
compare  them  to  the  "  school  "  ol 
iEschylus,  which  consisted  of  dra- 
matists descended  from  the  great 
tragedian,  but  that  it  is  incorrect 
to  say — though  it  is  said — that  the 
"  school  "  of  iEschylus  worked  on 
principles  common  to  themselves 
and  their  ancestor. 

"With  regard  to  the  Homeridse, 
we  have  first  to  say,  that  though 
they  may  account  "for  the  trans- 
mission of  Homer,  they  leave  un- 
solved the  problem  how  the  other 
epic  poets  managed  to  transmit 
their  works.  In  the  next  place,  we 
must  know  who  and  what  the 
Homeridse  were,  for  the  word  ia 
used  in  different  senses  apparently 
by  ancient  writers.  By  Pindar  it 
is  used  as  equivalent  to  rhapsodists, 
and  by  Plato  as  meaning  students 
of  Homer.  Strabo  (14,  645)  says 
the  Homeridse  were  people  who 
lived  in  Chios,  and  were  so  called 
because  they  were  relatives  of 
Homer.  Now  if  this  were  all  the 
evidence  there  were  to  go  upon,  it 
would  be  insufficient ;  for  here  we 
have  no  mention  of  a  guild,  nothing 
to  show  that  the  soi-disant  descen- 
dants of  Homer  wrote  poetry  of  any 
kind,  nothing  but  the  fact  that 
there  were  people  living  in  Chios 
who  claimed  kinship  with  the  great 
poet,  and  that  students  of  Homer 
were  called  Homeridse.  What  then 
is  there  to  supply  these  missing 
links  ?  The  statement  of  a  scholiast. 
According  to  the  scholion  on  the 
passage  of  Pindar  above  referred  to 
{Nem.  ii.  i),  the  descendants  of 
Homer  inherited  and  sang  his 
poems.  These  Homeridse  were  sub- 
sequently called  rhapsodists,  and 
introduced  man}'  verses  into  the 
poems.i  What  is  the  worth  of  a 
scholiast  ?  A  scholiast  was  any  per- 
son who  wrote  scholia  or  notes  on  the 
margin  of  a  manuscript  of  an  ancient 


*  'OfiTjpiSai  IXeyov  rb  fiiv  dpxcuov  roi/s  dirb  tou  'Oix-fjpov  yivovs,  oX  KoX  rijp 
woirjaiv  avTov  iK  5ia8oxvs  ^Sov,  furd  Si  ravra  Kal  ol  pc.^uSoi  oiiKiri  rb  yivot 
tit 'Ofiijpov  dydyom^t 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION. 


53 


author,  and  some  scholia  are  as  late  as 
A.  D.  1400  or  A.D.  1 500.  Being  of  vari- 
ous dates  and  of  very  various  value, 
scholiasts  are  now  only  regarded  as 
trustworthy  so  far  as  they  can  be 
supposed  to  be  quoting  from  good 
authorities  ;  their  own  conjectures 
are  not  to  be  relied  on.  Now  in 
the  scholion  we  are  concerned  with, 
there  is  no  indication  that  the 
scholiast  had  before  him  any  other 
authorities  than  those  we  possess  ; 
and  there  is  every  indication  that 
he  took  tlie  very  easy  chance  which 
■was  given  him  of  making  a  con- 
jecture of  his  own.  So  far  as 
negative  evidence  has  any  value, 
it  is  against  this  conjecture.  The 
scholia  to  the  Iliad,  which  are  valu- 
able simply  because  they  contain 
many  quotations  from  Aristarchus, 
the  famous  editor  of  Homer,  and 
from  other  Alexandrine  critics, 
never  mention  the  Homeridse  ;  and 
when  they  mention  that  a  verse 
was  suspected  or  rejected  in  anti- 
quity, they  never  attribute  the  spu- 
rious verse  to  the  authorship  of  a 
rhaps  de  or  a  Homerides. 

Not  only  is  the  evidence  for  a 
literary  guild  of  Homeridse  weak, 
and  not  only  is  the  assumption  of 
such  a  guild  inadequate  to  explain 
the  transmission  of  the  body  of  epic 
poetry  which  was  by  other  authors 
than  the  rftl  or  supposed  Homer ; 
it  does  not  even  account  for  the 
transmission  of  the  Homeric  poems. 
If  they  were  the  hereditary  property 
of  a  guild  resident  in  Chios,  and  if 
it  is  only  by  means  of  such  a  lite- 
rary organisation  that  we  can  ex- 
plain the  transmission  of  Homer  in 
the  absence  of  writing,  then  the 
Homeric  poems  should  only  have 
been  known  in  Chios.  Their  spread 
throughout  Greece  remains  a  greater 
mystery  than  ever.  But  it  may  be 
said  a  considerable  body  of  epics 
— whether  Homeric  or  non-Homeric 
— was  transmitted  somehow,  and  if 
not  by  some  such  literary  organisa- 
tion, then  in  what  way  ?    To  this 


wo  may  reply,  that  the  diffusion  ol 
epic  poetry,  while  it  negatives  the 
supposition  of  local  guilds,  also 
indicates  a  free  and  spontaneous 
cultivation  of  epic  poetry,  not  a 
mechanical  system  of  oral  teaching 
designed  to  secure  the  perpetuatioa 
of  literature.  From  the  way  in 
which  Phemius  prides  himself  in 
the  Odyssey  on  composing  original 
poems,  it  may  be  inferred  that  other 
minstrels  recited  more  poems  by 
other  composers  than  works  of  their 
own  ;  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the 
scenes  in  Alcinous'  palace  where 
Demodocus  is  called  on  for  lays 
already  known  to  his  audience. 
We  may  conjecture,  then,  that  in 
epic  times  a  poet,  before  beginning 
to  compose  original  works,  associ- 
ated by  a  natural  tendency  with 
other  poets,  and  stored  his  mind 
with  the  epic  poetry  which  was  in 
part  their  work  and  partly  learnt 
by  them  from  older  poets.  This 
may  explain  the  transmission  of 
epic  poetry.  It  will  also  explain 
its  diffusion ;  for  a  minstrel  who 
travelled  from  place  to  place  would 
doubtless  gladly  learn  and  gladly 
teach  other  minstrels  whom  he  met. 
Even  when  the  epic  age  was  over 
and  lyric  poetry  took  the  place  of 
epic,  the  mode  of  transmission  and 
ditl'usion  seems,  until  the  rhap- 
sodists  arose,  to  have  been  much 
the  same.  Poets,  though  they  no 
longer  wrote  epics,  declaimed  epic 
poetry  and  sought  much  of  their 
inspiration  from  it.  The  influ- 
ence of  epic  poetry  over  the  lyric 
poet  Stesichorus,  for  instance,  was 
unduly  strong  ;  while  Terpander, 
Clonas,  Polymnestus,  and  other 
early  lyric  poets  are  mentioned  ^ 
as  declaiming  epic.  In  fine,  the 
natural  and  obvious  cultivation  of 
poetry  by  free  communication  and 
personal  contact  between  poets  in 
times  when  writing  was  not  used  for 
literary  purposes  suffices  to  explain 
the  transmission  and  diffusion  ol 
epic. 


1  Plutarch  de  Mut.  3. 


54  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE     EPIC     CYCLE. 

There  were  other  epic  poets  in  early  times  besides  Homei 
Their  works,  though  they  have  not  reached  us,  were  pieserved 
until  the  time  of  the  Alexandrian  grammarians,  and  probably 
for  some  centuries  later.  Some  of  these  writers  took  for  their 
subject  incidents  from  the  history  of  the  expedition  against 
Thebes ;  others  incidents  from  the  Trojan  war.  At  some  time 
or  other  the  poems  dealing  with  the  Trojan  war  were  arranged 
in  the  order  of  the  events  they  narrated ;  the  same  thing  waa 
done  with  those  which  related  the  Theban  war,  and  the  two 
sets  of  poems  together  formed  an  epic  cycle,  so  called  apparently 
because  it  embraced  the  whole  round  of  the  mythological  events 
related  in  epic  poetry.  Then  in  later  times,  when  readers  did 
not  care  to  wade  through  all  these  poems,  and  yet  wished  to 
possess  an  acquaintance  with  the  mythological  events  related 
in  them,  a  prose  summary  of  their  contents  was  drawn  up. 
This  prose  "  epic  cycle  "  began  at  the  beginning  of  all  things, 
■with  the  wedding  of  Heaven  and  Earth,  from  whom  were  born 
the  Cyclops,  and  related  the  origin,  course,  and  consequences 
of  the  Theban  and  Trojan  wars,  finishing  with  the  death  of 
Odysseus,  unwittingly  killed  by  his  son  Telegonus.  This  prose 
summary  was  the  work  of  Proclus,  but  whether  of  the  neo- 
Platonic  philosopher  of  that  name,  who  lived  in  Constantinople 
about  A.D.  450,  or  of  the  tutor  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  is  somewhat 
uncertain.  It  seems,  however,  more  probable  that  the  latter 
should  be  the  author  than  that  a  neo-Platonic  philosopher 
should  have  coiulensed  the  epic  poets  into  a  manual  of  mytho- 
logy ;  and  accordingly  Eutychius  Proclus  of  Sicca  is  generally 
regarded  as  the  author. 

As  it  is  from  the  summary  of  Proclus  that  we  derive  our 
chief  knowledge  of  the  poems  contained  in  the  Trojan  cycle, 
we  will  give  a  brief  account  of  the  contents  of  Proclus'  work, 
as  it  has  come  down  to  us.  The  principal  fragment  of  his  sum- 
mary was  found  prefixed  to  some  of  the  manuscripts  of  Homer. 
It  begins  with  the  epic  called  the  Cypiia.  Why  the  poem  was 
called  the  Cypria  Ave  cannot  now  tell.  It  may  have  been  because 
the  rape  of  Helen,  which  is  the  main  subject  of  the  poem,  was 
the  work  of  the  Cyprian  goddess  Aphrodite,  or  because  the 
author  of  the  poem  was  born  at  Cyprus.  But  who  was  the 
author  is  also  uncertain :  some  ascribed  the  poem  to  Homer, 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  EPIC  CYCLE.  5  5 

but  Aristotle  expressly  denies  the  Homeric  authorship  of  the 
work  ;  according  to  others,  Stasinus  or  Hegesias  was  the  author. 
This  is  a  point  which  cannot  be  settled :  let  us  turn  to  the  con- 
tents of  the  poem.  Once  on  a  time  Zeus  took  counsel  with 
Thetis  how  the  earth,  overcrowded  with  men,  might  be  relieved 
of  her  burden,  and  he  resolved  that  there  should  be  a  great 
war,  the  Trojan  war.  Therefore  Thetis  was  married  to  Peleus, 
and  from  them  was  born  the  hero  of  the  Iliad,  Achilles.  At  the 
marriage-feast  the  goddess  of  strife,  Eris,  appeared,  and  by  the 
golden  apple  which  she  gave  to  be  awarded  to  the  fairest,  brought 
the  three  goddesses  Athene,  Here,  and  Aphrodite  to  contend  about 
their  beauty.  They  appointed  Paris  (or  Alexander)  to  decide 
between  them,  and,  won  over  by  the  promise  of  the  fairest  of 
wives,  he  awarded  the  apple  to  Aphrodite.  She  then  bade  iEneas 
set  sail  with  Paris  from  Troy  for  Greece ;  and,  in  spite  of  the 
prophecies  of  Helenus  and  Cassandra,  they  departed.  In  Sparta 
they  were  entertained  by  Menelaxis,  the  husband  of  Helen,  the 
fairest  woman  in  Greece.  During  the  absence  of  Menelaus  Paris 
carried  off  Helen.  A  storm  first  drove  them  to  Sidon,  which 
Paris  captured,  and  thence  they  went  to  Troy.  At  this  point 
in  the  poem  an  episode  seems  to  have  been  introduced  concern- 
ing the  adventures  of  Helen's  brothers,  Castor  and  Polydeuces, 
relating  the  death  of  the  former  and  the  alternate  immorta- 
lity conferred  on  them  by  Zeus.  After  this,  Iris,  the  messenger 
of  the  gods,  announced  to  Menelaus  the  flight  of  Helen,  and 
Menelaus  along  with  Agamemnon  took  steps  to  gather  an  army 
together  to  recover  her  by  force  of  arms.  First  Menelaus  went 
to  Nestor,  who  made  a  long  speech  about  Epopeus  and  the 
daughter  of  Lycus,  about  (Edipus  and  the  madness  of  Heracles, 
and  about  Theseus  and  Ariadne.  Then  they  gathered  together 
the  chieftains  of  Greece,  except  Odysseus,  who,  foreseeing  the 
duration  of  the  war,  feigned  to  be  mad,  but  was  found  out  by 
the  device  of  Palamedes,  on  whose  suggestion  the  infant  Tele- 
machus  was  placed  in  the  furrow  where  Odysseus  was  ploughing. 
The  expedition  then,  after  prophecies  from  Calchas,  set  sail,  and 
came  to  Tenth rania,  which  they  sacked.^  There  Telephus  killed 
Thersander,  the  son  of  Polyneices,  and  was  himself  wounded 
by  Achilles.  When  the  Greeks  proceeded  on  their  voyage  they 
were  caught  by  a  storm.  Achilles  was  carried  to  Scyrus,  where 
he  wedded  Deidameia ;  and  on  his  return  to  Argos  he  healed 

*  In  mistake  for  Troy,  according  to  Proclus.  This  seems  extraordinary, 
but  Strabo  says  the  same  thing  ;  and  it  is  consistent  with  what  is  soon  after 
said,  viz.,  that  after  this  mistake  the  Greeks  got  Telephus  to  show  them  the 
Way  to  Troy. 


56  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Telephus  in  crder  that  he  mig-ht  guide  the  Greeks  to  Troy. 
The  expedition,  scattered  by  the  storm,  again  assembled  at  Aulis; 
but  while  there,  Agamemnon  killed  one  of  the  deer  sacred  to 
Artemis,  and  the  goddess  in  vengeance  detained  the  fleet  by 
contrary  winds.  When  Calchas  informed  the  Greeks  that  the 
anger  of  the  goddess  could  only  be  appeased  by  the  sacrifice  of 
Iphigenia,  the  daughter  of  Agamemnon,  she  was  brought  to 
Aulis  on  the  pretext  that  she  was  to  be  wedded  to  Achilles, 
and  then  was  offered  as  a  victim.  But  Artemis  substituted  a 
deer,  and  carried  off  Iphigenia  to  Tauri,  making  her  immortal. 
Then  the  Greeks,  obtaining  fair  weather,  set  sail.  They  touched 
at  Tenedos,  where  Philoctetes  was  bitten  by  a  hydra,  and  in 
consequence  of  the  olfensive  nature  of  the  wound  the  Greeks 
abandoned  him  on  the  isle  of  Lemnos.  On  their  arrival  at  the 
land  of  Troy,  Achilles  quarrelled  with  Agamemnon  on  a  point 
of  precedence,  and  the  Trojans  at  first  repelled  the  Greeks, 
Hector  slaying  Protesilaus.  But  Achilles  joined  the  fray  and 
the  Trojans  were  defeated.  The  Greeks  then  opened  negotia- 
tions with  the  Trojans,  demanding  back  Helen  and  the  wealth 
she  had  carried  off.  The  Trojans  rejected  the  demands,  and 
the  Greeks  proceeded  to  ravage  the  country.  At  this  time 
Achilles  was  desirous  of  seeing  Helen,  and  Thetis  and  Aphro- 
dite brought  them  together.  The  siege  did  not  advance,  and 
the  mass  of  the  army  longed  to  return  home,  but  Achilles  pre- 
vented them.  They  then  continued  devastating  and  plunder- 
ing, and  amongst  the  spoils  Briseis  fell  to  the  lot  of  Achilles, 
Chryseis  to  Agamemnon.  There  then  follows  the  death  of 
Palamedes,  the  resolve  of  Zeus  to  assist  tlie  Trojans  by  with- 
drawing Achilles  from  the  fighting,  and  a  catalogue  of  the 
Trojan  allies. 

The  Cypria  was  followed  by  the  Iliad  of  Homer,  and  the 
next  poem  in  the  cycle  was  tlie  JEthiopis,  which  took  up  the 
story  where  the  Iliad  left  it.  The  ^thiopis  was  by  Arctinus 
of  Miletus,  the  greatest  of  the  epic  poets  after  Homer.  Hia 
date  is  made  by  the  chronologists  to  be  about  776  b.c.  After 
the  death  and  burial  of  Hector,  the  Amazon  Penthesilea,  the 
daughter  of  Ares,  came  to  assist  the  Trojans,  and  was  killed  by 
Achilles.  The  Trojans,  by  the  good  offices  of  Acliilles,  were 
allowed  to  bury  the  heroine,  and  this  gave  Thersites  occasion 
to  speak  evil  of  Achilles  and  Penthesilea.  Enraged  at  this, 
Achilles  slew  Tliersites  with  a  blow  from  his  fist,  and  hence 
arose  dissension  in  the  Greek  army.  In  the  end,  Achillea 
Bailed  to  Lesbos,  and  there  having  sacrificed  to  Apollo,  Artemis, 
and  Leto,  he  was  purified  from  the  guilt  of  blood  by  Odysseus. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  EPIC  CYCLE.  5  7 

After  this,  Memnon,  son  of  Eos,  the  dawn,  clad  in  armour 
made  by  Hephaestus,  came  to  the  assistance  of  the  Trojans, 
Thetis  foretold  to  Achilles  the  doom  which  awaited  him  if  he 
killed  Memnon ;  but  when  Antilochus,  the  friend  of  Achilles, 
had  been  slain  by  Memnon,  Achilles  in  vengeance  killed 
Memnon,  who  was  conveyed  away  by  his  mother,  Eos,  and 
made  immortal  by  Zeus.  AchiUes  routed  the  Trojans  and 
chased  them  into  the  city,  where  he  fell  by  the  hands  of 
Paris  and  Apollo.  A  fierce  fight  arose  over  the  body  of  the 
Greek  hero,  which  was  at  last  carried  back  to  the  ships  by 
Odysseus,  whilst  Ajax  kept  off  the  foe.  Then  Antilochus 
was  buried,  and  lamentation  was  made  over  Achilles  by  Thetis 
and  her  nymphs.  AATien  the  body  was  placed  on  the  pyre, 
Thetis  conveyed  it  away  to  the  isle  Leuce  ;  the  Greeks  erected 
a  mound  and  held  funeral  games  in  honour  of  Achilles  ;  and 
at  these  games,  in  which  the  divine  armour  of  Achilles  was 
one  of  the  prizes,  Odysseus  and  Ajax  contended  for  the  armour, 
which  was  awarded  to  Odysseus. 

The  next  poem  is  the  Little  Hiad.  It  is  generally  asso- 
ciated with  the  name  of  Lesches,  who  was  said  to  belong  to 
Lesbos.  But  Aristotle  prefers  to  speak  of  the  author  of  the 
Little  Hiad  without  pretending  to  know  his  name,  and  it  is 
therefore  probable  that  he  thought  there  was  no  authority  for 
assigning  the  poem  to  Lesches.  This  is  confirmed  by  the  fact 
that  Hellanicus  of  Lesbos,  who  on  patriotic  grounds  would  pro- 
bably have  credited  his  fellow-countryman  with  the  author- 
ship if  there  had  been  any  excuse  for  doing  so,  attributes  the 
work  to  Cinsethon  of  Sparta.  Further,  it  has  been  conjec- 
tured that  Lesches  is  not  a  proper  name,  but  is  derived  from 
the  word  lesche,  a  market,  and  meant  merely  the  man  who 
sang  in  the  market  to  the  assembled  people. 

The  Little  Iliad  says  that  the  award  of  Achilles'  divine 
armour  to  Odysseus  was  due  to  Athene.  Ajax,  in  his  anger  at 
the  slight  put  upon  him  by  the  preference  shown  to  Odysseus, 
resolved  to  slaughter  the  Greek  chieftains  ;  but  Athene  sent 
madness  on  him,  so  that  he  slew  sheep  for  men,  and  when 
he  awoke  to  a  sense  of  this  further  disgrace,  he  killed  himself. 
After  this  Odysseus  contrived  to  capture  Helenus,  by  means  of 
■whose  prophetic  powers  the  Greeks  learned  how  Troy  might 
be  captured.  They  sent  Odysseus  and  Diomedes  to  Lemnos,  to 
bring  to  them  the  wounded  Philoctetes.  He  was  healed  by 
Machaon,  and  then  killed  Paris  in  single  combat.  The  body 
of  Paris  was  treated  with  contumely  by  Menelaus,  but  was 
given  to  the  Trojans  for  burial      Helen,  Paris  being  dead, 


^ff^^^^Ps. 


58  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

became  the  wife  of  his  brother,  Dciphobus.  At  this  point  in 
the  poem  yet  new  characters  are  brought  on  the  scene.  Odys- 
seus fetched  Neoptolemus,  the  son  of  Achilles,  from  Scyrus,  and 
gave  to  him  his  father's  divine  armour.  For  the  Trojans,  a 
fresh  hero  appeared  in  Eurypylus,  the  son  of  Telephus,  Neop- 
tolemus  and  Eurypylus  fight  as  their  fathers  had  (in  the 
Cypria)  fought  before  them,  and  Eurypylus  is  slain.  Mean* 
while  Epeus,  inspired  by  Athene,  contrives  the  famous  wooden 
horse,  Odysseus,  having  mutilated  and  disguised  himself,  steals 
into  Troy  to  gather  information,  and  though  recognised  by 
Helen,  returns  in  safety.  After  this,  in  company  with  Diomede, 
he  succeeded  in  entering  Troy  and  carrying  off  the  Palladium, 
or  image  of  Pallas,  which  as  long  as  it  was  in  the  possession  of 
the  Trojans  secured  Troy  from  overthrow.  Then  picked  men 
of  the  Greeks  were  shut  up  in  a  wooden  horse  ;  the  rest  of  the 
army  burnt  their  tents  and  sailed  away,  as  though  they  had 
raised  the  siege.  But  they  only  went  as  far  away  as  Tenedos. 
The  Trojans  in  their  joy  at  the  end  of  the  war  pulled  down 
part  of  their  wall  to  admit  the  horse  into  the  city,  and  feasted 
and  rejoiced  because  they  had  defeated  the  Greeks. 

Proclus  says  that  the  Little  Iliad  was  followed  by  the  Sack 
of  Troy,  the  work  of  Arctinus  of  Miletus.  According  to 
Arctinus,  the  Trojans  at  first  were  doubtful  about  the  horse. 
Some  proposed  to  throw  it  over  a  precipice,  others  to  burn  it, 
others  to  place  it  as  an  offering  to  Athene  in  the  temple  of 
the  goddess.  The  last  view  prevailed,  and  the  Trojans  made 
merry.  Laocdon,  who  had  urged  the  destruction  of  the  horse, 
was  killed  by  two  serpents  that  came  out  of  the  sea  ;  and 
jEneas,  who  had  supported  Laocdon  in  his  opposition  to  the 
reception  of  the  horse  into  the  city,  withdrew  with  his  followers 
to  Ida.  Sinon,  a  Greek,  who  had  gained  entrance  into  Troy 
by  a  stratagem,  then  gave  the  signal  to  the  Greek  fleet  by  a 
torch.  The  Greeks  returned,  and  Troy  was  simultaneously 
attacked  from  without  by  the  main  body,  and  from  within  by 
those  who  had  gained  admittance  by  means  of  the  horse. 
Neoptolemus  slew  Priam  at  the  altar  of  Zeus  ;  Menelaus  killed 
Deiphobus  and  carried  off  Helen  to  the  ships.  Cassandra, 
daughter  of  Priam,  fled  to  the  temple  of  Athene,  and,  still 
clinging  to  the  image  of  the  goddess,  was  dragged  away  by 
Ajax  Oileus.  Dismayed  at  this  reckless  impiety,  his  fellow- 
soldiers  would  have  stoned  Ajax  to  death,  but  that  he  fled  for 
protection  to  the  altar  of  the  very  goddess  he  had  offended  ; 
and  therefore,  when  the  Greeks  sailed  away,  Athene  devised 
cVestruction   for   them   on  the   sea.     Astyanax,  the  little   soa 


EPIC  POETRY:    THE  EPIC  CYCLE.  59 

of  Hector  and  Andromache,  was  killed  by  the  advice,  if  not 
the  hand,  of  Odysseus ;  and  Andromache  became  the  prize 
of  Neoptolemus.  Then  the  city  was  burnt,  and  Polyxena 
slaughtered  on  the  tomb  of  Achilles  as  an  offering  to  the  hero's 
ghost. 

The  Sack  of  Troy  was  followed  by  the  Nostoi,  or  "The 
Kfcturnj"  or,  as  it  was  sometimes  called,  "  The  Return  of  the 
Atridae."  ^  Proclus  calls  the  author  Agias  ;  Pausanias,  Hegias. 
Eustathius  says  he  was  a  Colophonian.  It  seems  probable  that 
there  were  several  poems  called  the  Return.  The  one  sum- 
marised by  Proclus  takes  up  the  story  where  the  Sack  of  Troy 
left  it.  The  wrath  of  Athene,  roused  by  the  impiety  of  Ajax 
Oileus,  and  extending  to  all  the  Greeks  because  they  failed  to 
punish  Ajax,  now  begins  to  manifest  itself,  Pirst,  she  caused 
the  two  sons  of  Atreus  to  quarrel  about  setting  sail :  Agamemnon 
stayed  to  appease  Athene,  but  Menelaus  set  sail,  following  the 
example  of  Diomede  and  Nestor,  who  reached  their  homes  in 
safety.  Menelaus,  however,  lost  all  his  ships  but  five,  and  then 
was  driven  to  Egypt.  Calchas  the  seer,  Leontes,  and  Poly- 
poetes,  went  on  foot  to  Coloplion,^  and  there  buried  Teiresias. 
When  Agamemnon  was  about  to  sail,  the  ghost  of  Achilles 
appeared  and  warned  him,  but  in  vain,  of  his  doom.  There 
next  follows  the  storm  in  which  Ajax  perished.  Neoptolemus, 
by  the  advice  of  Thetis,  returns  by  land,  meeting  Odysseus  in 
Maroneia ;  and  eventually,  after  burying  his  father's  old  friend, 
the  aged  knight  Phoenix,  returns  to  his  grandfather,  Peleus. 
The  poem  concludes  with  the  murder  of  Agamemnon  by 
.^gisthus  and  Clytemestra ;  the  vengeance  taken  by  Orestes 
and  Pylades,  and  the  return  of  Menelaus  home. 

Finally,  the  tale  of  Troy  was  wound  up  by  th.e  Telegoniay 
or  story  of  Telegonus.  This  epic  was  by  Eugamon  of  Gyrene, 
who  lived  about  B.C.  570.  The  Telegonia  attached  itself  to  the 
Odyssey  closely,  taking  up  the  story  where  the  Odyssey  ended, 
viz.,  with  the  death  of  the  suitors.  The  suitors  were  buried  by 
their  relatives,  and  Odysseus  went  to  Elis  to  see  the  herds 
there.  He  was  entertained  by  Polyxenus,  from  whom  he 
received  a  bowl  on  which  was  chased  the  story  of  Trophonius, 
Agamedes,  and  Augeas.  He  then  returned  to  Ithaca  and 
accomplished  the  sacrifices  ordained  by  Teiresias.  After  this 
he  went  to  Thesprotis  and  married  Gallidice,  queen  of  the  land, 
and  led  the  Thesprotians  in  a  war  against  the  Brygi.     The  god 

1  ■^  Twv  'ArpeiSuiv  KadoSos. 

^  This  mention  of  Colophon  confinus  slightly  Eustathius'  statemeut  thai 
the  author  was  a  Colophonian. 


60  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

of  war,  however,  routed  Odysseus'  army,  but  tlien  waj  fought 
by  Athene,  until  Apollo  intervened.  After  the  death  of  Calli- 
dice,  Polypoetes,  the  son  of  Odysseus,  inherited  the  kingdom, 
and  Odysseus  returned  to  Ithaca.  Meanwhile  Telegonus,  the 
son  of  Odysseus  by  Circe,  had  sailed  from  -^sea  in  quest  of  hia 
father,  and  had  come  to  Ithaca.  He  was  ravaging  the  island 
when  Odysseus  came  to  the  assistance  of  the  Ithacans  and  was 
killed  by  Telegonus.  Then  Telegonus  having  discovered  who 
it  was  he  had  slain,  took  the  body  of  Odysseus,  with  Telemachus 
and  Penelope,  to  his  motlier  Circe.  She  made  them  immortaL 
Telegonus  married  Penelope,  Telemachus  Circe. 

It  may  be  asked  what  groands  there  are  for  ascribing  a  consider- 
able antiquity  to  the  JEtldopis,  Cypria,  the  Sack,  the  Return,  &c.  t 
In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  unanimous  belief  of  antiquity  that 
the  earliest  period  of  Greek  literature  was  an  age  of  epic  poetry, 
and  that  these  epics  belonged  to  that  period.  In  the  next 
place,  there  are  the  perpetual  allusions  throughout  lyric  and 
dramatic  poetry  to  the  tales  of  Troy  and  Thebes  which  were 
told  in  these  epics.  Further,  in  the  way  of  definite  external 
evidence  there  is  the  mention  by  Herodotus  of  the  Cypna  as 
distinct  from  the  work  of  Homer  and  as  inconsistent  in  some 
of  its  details  with  the  Iliad,  The  Epigoni  also,  one  of  the 
poems  relating  to  Thebes  which  was  incorporated  in  the  cycle, 
is  mentioned  by  Herodotus  (iv.  32).  lu  Theognis,  who  flour- 
ished about  B.C.  540,  there  is  a  quotation  from  the  Cypria?- 
Finally,  Callinus,  whose  date  is  placed  about  B.C.  730,  mentions 
the  Thebais,  another  of  the  poems  incorporated  in  the  cycle 
which  dealt  with  Thebes,  though  he  ascribes  it  to  Homer. 

As  we  have  said,  the  Epic  Cycle  included  n  t  only  a  series 
of  epics  relating  the  story  of  the  Trojan  war,  but  also  another 
series  relating  the  expedition  against  Thebes.  Of  the  latter  we 
have  no  summary  and  practically  no  knowledge.  We  may  gain 
some  idea  of  the  contents  of  the  Theban  epics  from  tragedies 
on  the  same  subject,  but  we  can  form  no  idea  of  the  way  in 
which  the  tale  of  Thebes  was  treated  by  the  authors  of  the  epic 
poems,  nor  of  their  literary  merit.  The  most  famous  of  the 
Theban  epics  was  the  Thebais.  Its  author  is  unknown.  It 
treated  of  the  history  of  Oedipus  and  his  sons,  as  did  also, 
to  judge  from  the  name,  the  CEdipodeia,  which  is  ascribed  to 
Cinsethon.     The  Epigoni  was  presumably  a  continuation  of  the 

^  Theogn.  883  (1053),  toO  irlvi^v  &irh  fikv  xaXcTas  (TKedaffeis  fieXc&Mvat, 
from  the  lines  iu  the  Cypria  (quoted  by  Athenseus,  ii.  35c) — 

Olvbv  TOi,  MfviXae,  6eol  iroiTjcrai'  dpiffrov 
QyrjTOis  dpOpdiTToiaiy  dirocTKeddaai  jxeXeSuvau 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  EPIC  CYCLE. 


61 


story  of  the  Thehais,  and  may  have  been  identical  with  the 
Alcmceoiiis,  though  this  is  uncertain.  The  Taking  of  (Echalia 
related  the  story  of  the  capture  of  the  town  by  Heracles,  who 
thus  won  lole — a  story  on  which  Sophocles'  play  the  TrachinicB 
was  based.  The  name  of  the  author  is  Creophylus.  The 
Mini/as  may  have  been  identical  with  the  Phocoeis:  it  contained 
a  descent  to  Hades,  in  which  Charon  appears ;  and  the  name 
of  the  author  is  given  sometimes  as  Prodicus,  sometimes  as 
Thestorides.  The  two  last-mentioned  epics,  the  Taking  of 
CEchalia  and  the  Minyas,  were  not  based  on  Theban  myths, 
and  consequently  it  may  be  doubted  whether  they  were  in- 
corporated into  the  Epic  Cycle.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the 
Titanomachia,  which  was  ascribed  to  Arctiaus  and  also  to 
Eumelus,  and  of  the  Atthis  or  Amazonia. 


APPENDIX  TO  CHAPTER  IV. 


THE   RELATION   OF   THE   EPIC   CYCLE   TO   HOMER. 


Although  Proclus  may  have  given 
us  a  correct  version  of  the  tale  of 
Troy  as  it  was  to  be  found  in  the 
Epic  Cycle,  it  does  not  follow  that 
we  get  from  his  summary  a  complete 
or  a  correct  notion  of  the  poems  in 
their  original  separate  form.  His 
object  was  to  give  a  clear  account 
of  the  various  events  which  made 
up  the  story,  and  for  this  purpose 
he  may  have  had  to  omit  or  to  alter 
parts  of  some  of  the  poems.  If  two 
poems  naiTated  the  same  event,  he 
would,  for  clearness,  have  to  omit 
one  account ;  and  if  one  poem  did 
not  join  on  naturally  to  that  which 
preceded  or  that  which  followed  it, 
he  would  have  to  alter  its  begin- 
ning or  end  in  order  to  make  the 
sequen'^e  easy  and  intelligible.  We 
must  therefore  endeavour  to  see  if, 
and  how  much,  this  has  been  the 
case.  Beginning  with  the  Ci/pria, 
we  find  apparently  a  clear  case  ot 
alteration.  According  to  Proclus, 
Paris,  when  carr3-ing  Helen  away 
to  Troy,  was  driven  by  a  storm, 


which  Here  sent,  to  Sidon  and 
captured  the  place.  But  Herodo- 
tus ^  distinctly  says  that,  according 
to  the  Cypria,  Paris  reached  Troy 
in  three  days,  having  enjoyed  a 
favourable  wind  and  a  smooth  sea. 
It  is  unlikely  that  Herodotus  should 
make  a  mistake  on  this  point,  be- 
cause he  relies  on  his  quotation  to 
prove  that  the  Cypria  was  not  the 
work  of  Homer.  He  says,  accord- 
ing to  Homer,  Paris  went  to  Sidon, 
but  according  to  the  Cypria,  he  did 
not.  We  have,  then,  here  a  case 
in  which  the  version  of  the  Cypria 
with  which  we  are  acquainted 
through  Proclus  has  been  altered 
in  order  to  make  the  general  flow 
of  the  story  harmonious,  and  parti- 
cularly to  make  the  Cypria  har- 
monise with  Homer.  It  may  also 
seem  as  though  Proclus  must  have 
omitted  a  good  deal  at  the  end 
of  the  Cypria;  for  it  is  not  quite 
clear  how  the  poem  was  wound 
up  satisfactorily,  so  as  to  make 
a   complete   whole   in    itself;   and 


^  ii.  It/. 


62 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


further,  it  seems  that,  according  to 
a  schcliast,^  the  poem  mentioned 
at  least  one  incident,  the  death 
of  Polyxena,  in  the  sack  of  Troy. 
But  this  does  not  prove  that  the 
action  of  the  poem  included  the 
taking  of  Troj'.  The  Cypria  is 
essentially  the  narrative  of  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  and  a  reler- 
enc€  to  an  incident  at  the  end  of 
the  war  no  more  proves  that  the 
taking  of  Troy  was  a  part  of  the 
subject  of  the  poem  than  the  refer- 
ences in  the  Iliad  to  the  death  of 
Achilles  prove  that  his  death  came 
within  the  action  of  the  Iliad. ^ 
We  may  therefore  reasonably  con- 
clude that  the  Cypria  ended  where 
Proclus  makes  it  end.'* 

The  Cypria  was  followed  in  the 
cycle  by  the  Iliad,  and  after  the 
Iliad  came  the  jEthiofiis  of  Arc- 
tinus.  As  far  as  can  be  judged, 
the  beginning  of  the  yiithiopis 
seems  to  have  originally  htted  on 
to  the  end  of  the  Iliad  so  well  that 
no  alteration  or  omission  was  neces- 
sary. But  when  we  look  to  the 
rest  of  the  poem,  the  case  is  diffe- 
rent. In  the  first  place,  according 
to  Proclus,  the  jEthiopis  ends  with 
a  quarrel  between  Ajax  and  Odys- 
seus about  the  armour  of  Achilles, 
the  issue  of  which  is  contained  in 
the  Little  Iliad.  But  the  jEthiopis 
could  not  have  ended  in  the  middle 
of  the  quarrel ;  it  too,  as  well  as 
the  Little  Iliad,  must  have  related 
the  issue.  Even  there,  however, 
it  could  not  have  stopped.  The 
suicide  of  Ajax  was  not  an  event  of 
sufficient  importance,  did  not  exer- 


cise so  great  an  influence  on  th# 
course  of  the  war  that  an  epio 
could  find  a  natural  close,  or  the 
story  of  the  war  find  a  breathing 
place  therein.  If  the  j£thiopis  did 
not,  however,  end  with  the  suicide 
of  Ajax,  where  did  it  end  ?  Th« 
answer  seems  to  be  given  by  the 
fact  that  Arctinus  did  actually 
carry  on  the  tale  of  Troy  as  far  as 
the  taking  of  Troy.  This  he  related 
in  the  poem  which  Proclus  sum. 
marises  and  calls  the  Sack  of  Troy. 
Doubtless  Proclus  was  right  in  call- 
ing what  he  summarised  the  Sack 
of  Troy  ;  but  it  was  not  a  separate 
poem  :  it  was  part  of  the  ^thiopis, 
and  this  part  got  its  name  from  its 
contents,  in  the  same  way  as  different 
parts  of  Homer  have  received  their 
names  from  their  contents.  It 
seems,  therefore,  probable  that  the 
beginning  of  the  jEthiopis  was 
placed  next  after  the  Iliad  because 
it  immediately  took  up  the  story  of 
the  Iliad.  Then  the  Little  Iliad 
was  appended  to  this  portion  of  the 
jEthiopis  because  it  contained  a 
fuller  account  of  the  events  which 
led  up  to  the  making  of  the  wooden 
horse  than  the  corresponding  por- 
tion of  the  jEthiopns  presented. 
Then  the  rest  of  the  jEthiopis,  re- 
lating the  taking  of  Troy  and  called 
the  Sack  of  Troy,  was  brought  in 
to  wind  up  the  tale. 

If  the  jiEthiopis  has  suffered  by 
being  thus  divided  into  two  parts, 
the  Little  Iliad  has  also  suffered  by 
being  sandwiched  between  the  two 

J  arts.     The  Little  Iliad  could  not 
ave  begun  by  relating  the  issue 


^  On  Eur.  Hec.  41,  vwh  l^eoirToK^fiov  4>aalv  avTTjv  [i.e.  Polyxena)  <T(payiaiT' 
dfjuai  ]Lvpnri5T!)s  Kal  'I^vkos'  6  di  ra.  KvirpiaKO,  noirjaas  (prjaiv  inrb  'OdvcraeoH 
Kal  Ato/x'^oous  iv  ry  ttjs  7r6\ea>s  aXwcrei  TpavfiaTicrdelcxav  aTroXeffdai. 

-  If  it  be  said  that  Achilles  is  the  principal  figure  in  the  Iliad,  and  there- 
fore an  allusion  to  hi.s  death  was  natural,  but  Polyxena  is  not  the  piincijial 
figure  of  the  Cypria,  we  may  meet  this  by  pointing  to  the  reference  in  the 
Iliad  to  the  death  of  Astyaiiax  (II.  xxiv.  735),  wliicli  also  occurred  in  the 
sack  of  Troy,  and  is  of  no  more  importance  to  the  Iliad  than  the  death  o£ 
Polyxena  to  the  Cypria- 

^  And  as  he  makes  it  end,  i.e.,  with  a  prophecy  from  Zeus,  in  which  the 
poet  could  insert  so  much  of  the  rest  of  the  tale  of  Troy  as  was  necessary  td 
wind  up  the  loose  ends  of  his  own  story. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  EPIC  CYCLE. 


63 


of  the  quarrel  between  Odysseus 
and  Ajax ;  it  must  have  related 
/he  cause  of  the  quarrel,  and  pro- 
bably the  poem  covered  much  the 
tame  f,'round  as  the  beginning  of 
tlie  ^Ethiopis.  So,  too,  the  Little 
Iliad  would  not  merely  relate  the 
making  of  the  wooden  horse  ;  it 
would  also  go  on  to  tell  how  it  was 
used  and  with  what  result,  i.e.,  tell 
the  taking  of  Troy.  This  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  Pausanias  and  other 
authors  refer  to  incidents  of  the 
sack  as  occurring  in  the  Little 
Iliad;  while  Aristotle  says  that 
from  it  tragedians  drew  the  plays 
called  the  Sack  of  Troy,  Setting  Sail, 
Siyioti,  and  Troades. 

Finally,  the  Return  and  the  Tele- 
gonia  seem  to  have  fitted  naturally 
into  their  jflaces  in  the  cycle,  and 
to  have  needed  and  received  no 
alterations. 

The  question  now  arises  whether 
the  alterations,  or  rather  the  omis- 
sions, just  described  are  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  work  of  Proclus,  or 
wliether  the  independent  poems, 
when  they  came  to  be  arranged  so 
as  to  form  a  cycle,  were  altered  so 
as  to  fit  on  to  each  other  and  make  a 
continuous  story  ?  The  latter  seems 
to  have  been  the  case.  Proclus  says 
expressly  that  the  poems  of  the 
cycle  were  much  read,  precisely  be- 
cause they,  or  rather  it,  made  a 
continuous  story.  Now,  some  of  the 
poems  in  their  original  form  re- 
peated a  great  deal  of  the  story 
told  in  others,  as  we  have  seen  ; 
and  if  they  were  embodied  in  the 
cycle  just  as  they  stood,  without 
any  dovetailing  or  excisions,  they 
would  not  make  a  continuous  story. 
Further,  Proclus'  statement  is  con- 
firmed from  other  sources.  The 
last  line  of  the  Iliad  was  altered 
BO  as  to  make  it  join  on  to  the 
^thiopis.^      The    version    of    the 


Odyssey  as  it  was  embodied  in 
the  cycle  was  called  the  "  Cyclic 
Odyssey."  The  "Trojan  Table" 
which  was  found  at  Bovillae,  and 
may  have  formed  part  of  the  decc*- 
ration  of  a  librarj',  contains  pictures 
and  legends  which  confirm  Proclus 
in  the  order  he  places  the  poems 
composing  the  cycle  in. 

When  the  poems  were  arranged 
so  as  to  form  an  Epic  Cycle  is  un- 
certain. The  "Trojan  Table,"  which 
seems  to  presuppose  the  existence  of 
the  cycle,  probably  belongs  to  the 
early  part  of  the  reign  of  Tiberius. 
The  "Cyclic  Odyssey"  carries  the 
cycle  back  to  the  time  of  Didymus, 
who  lived  in  the  reign  of  Augustus, 
and  from  whom  comes  the  inlor- 
mation  about  the  alteration  of  the 
final  verse  of  the  Iliad  and  the 
"  Cyclic  Odyssey."  But  further 
back  than  this  it  is  as  yet  impos- 
sible to  trace  the  arrangement  of 
the  poems  into  a  cycle.  We  know 
indeed  that  Zenodotus  arranged  in 
order  the  poems  of  Homer ;  but 
this  seems  to  refer  rather  to  the 
cataloguing  of  the  Homeric  poems 
for  the  library  at  Alexandria  than 
to  the  editing  of  the  cycle. 

We  now  have  to  ask  what  is  the 
relation  of  these  poems  to  Homer  ? 
There  are  many  incidents  which 
they  have  in  common,  and  which 
one  may  have  borrowed  from  the 
other.  The  murder  of  Agamem- 
non is  told  in  the  Odyssey  and  also 
in  the  Return.  There  are  through- 
out Homer  numerous  references  and 
brief  allusions  to  events  which  are 
related  in  full  in  the  cyclics  ;  and. 
we  may  suppose  either  that  the 
cyclics  worked  out  in  detail  hints 
given  in  Homer,  or  we  may  say 
that  Homer  had  the  works  of  the 
cyclics  before  him,  and  was  refer- 
ring to  them.  Indeed,  w^eu  we 
find  in  the  Odyssey  that  a  minstrel 


^  Schol.  Vict.   n.  xxiv.    804,    Tjvej  ypaipovcnv  ws   017'   afi<f>Uirov  Td<pof 
*E/cTopos"  ■^X^e  5'  'AnaSdiv  'Api]os  dvydryp  fieyaXrjTopoi  dv5po(p6voiO>, 
The  Iliad  ends  really— 
CiK  o'iy  dfKpieiTov  Td<pov  ''EKTopos  iirwoddfioio. 


64 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


is  asked  to  sing  the  lay  of  the 
horse,  we  seem  to  have  a  reference 
to  the  Little  Iliad  or  the  ^thiopis. 
But  there  are  not  only  references 
between  the  cyclics  and  Homer  ; 
there  are  cross  references.  If,  for 
instance,  the  Iliad  presupposes  the 
Sack  of  Troy,  the  Sack  also  presup- 
poses the  Iliad,  which  would  prove 
that  each  poem  was  later  than 
Bud  borrowed  from  the  other.  It 
seems,  therefore,  that  we  must  seek 
some  other  explanation.  This  may 
perhaps  be  found  in  supposing  that 
the  references,  say  in  the  Iliad  to 
the  fate  of  Astyanax,  are  not  to  the 
Sach,  but  to  the  floating  popular 
legend.  So,  too,  it  would  not  be 
necessary  to  assume  that  the  Re- 
turn expanded  the  brief  allusion  to 
Agamemnon's  death  contained  in 
the  Odyssey.  Both  authors  may 
have  drawn  independently  from 
the  stories  of  the  people.  In  fine, 
the  cyclics  need  not  have  borrowed 
from  Homer,  nor  Homer  from  the 
cyclics  ;  both  may  have  borrowed 
from  a  common  source. 

This  indeed  assumes  that  there 
was  a  common  source  for  Homer 
and  the  cyclics  to  draw  upon,  and 
it  has  been  denied  that  we  have 
an)'  proof  of  the  existence  of  a 
popular  legend  telling  the  tale  of 
Troy.  But  this  denial  seems  to  be 
made  on  insufficient  grounds  and 
to  be  opposed  to  facts.     In  the  first 

filace,  all  peoples  have  their  folk- 
ore,  floating  mythology,  and  popu- 
lar legends.  In  the  next  place,  the 
comparison  of  Greek  mythology 
and  legends  with  those  of  other 
Aryan  peoples  shows  that  the  Greeks 
had  folk-tales  long  before  the  epic 
period.  Again,  each  city  and  place 
in  Greece  had  abundant  local  myths 
and  legends.  Further,  we  have 
already  seen  that  many  of  the  tales 
incorporated  in  the  Odyssey,  so  far 
from  being  the  invention  of  Homer, 
are  not  even  the  special  creation  of 
Greece,  but  are  found  among  jieoples 
of  totally  distinct  origin.  Finally, 
we  have  in  Homer  distinct  references 
to  lays,  e.g.,  of  the  horse  and  the 


sack  of  Troy,  as  existing  befom 
Homer's  time  ;  while  the  mtroduc- 
tion  to  the  Odyssey  says,  "Of  these 
things,  goddess,  declare  them  even 
unto  us,"  which  implies — if  the  line 
is  genuine — that  the  goddess  in- 
spired other  poets  before  Homer. 

But  although  we  may  be  iairly 
certain  that  there  existed  in  popu- 
lar story  a  common  source  from 
which  Homer  and  the  cyclics  may 
have  drawn  without  one  borrowing 
from  the  other,  it  is  very  improbable 
that  Homer  and  the  authors  of  the 
cyclic  poems  composed  their  works 
simultaneously  and  independently. 
It  is  also  very  improbable  that  the 
authors  of  the  later  poems— which- 
ever were  the  later  poems — were 
unacquainted  with,  and  therefore 
uninfluenced  by,  the  work  of  their 
predecessors.  Further,  if  we  assume 
that  all  the  poets  were  ignorant  of 
each  other's  work,  we  cannot  under- 
stand how  it  came  about,  for  in- 
stance, that  the  Cypria  just  ended 
where  the  Iliad  began,  and  that  the 
^thiopis  just  began  where  the  Iliad 
ended.  A  common  source  may  ex- 
plain the  points  which  the  poets 
have  in  common,  but  it  does  not 
explain  their  avoiding  each  other's 
subjects.  Of  course,  it  may  be  said 
that  our  knowledge  of  the  cyclics 
comes  from  Proclus'  summary  of 
the  cycle  ;  that  in  the  cycle  the 
poems  were  cut  down  so  as  to  fit 
on  to  each  other ;  and  that  there- 
fore we  have  no  right  to  say  that 
the  Retnrn,  for  instance,  in  its  origi- 
nal form  did  end  where  the  Odyssey 
begins,  or  the  Tclegonia  begiu  where 
the  Odyssey  ended.  To  this  we 
reply,  that  we  can  only  form  our 
opinion  on  this  point  by  means  of 
the  evidence  we  possess.  The  sum- 
mary of  the  Cypria  makes  it  toler- 
ably evident  that  the  poem  in  its 
original  form  did  end  where  the 
summary  makes  it  end  ;  just  as  the 
summary  of  the  jEthiopis  makes  it 
probable  that  the  original  poem  be- 
gan where  the  summary  begins  {i.e., 
at  the  end  of  the  Iliad),  but  did  not 
end  where  the  summary  ends.     So, 


EPIC  POETRY :    THE  EPIC  CYCLE. 


65 


too,  the  Return  and  the  Telegonia 
as  summarised  are  evidently  poems 
complete  in  themselves,  and  there 
is  nothing  in  the  summary  of  them 
which  points  to  their  having  been 
mutilated  in  order  to  fit  on  to  the 
Odyssey  in  the  cycle. 

We  have  then  these  facts  to  ac- 
count for  ;  whereas  the  action  of 
one  cyclic  poem,  e.g.,  the  JEthiopis, 
occupies  the  same  ground  as  is 
taken  up  by  that  of  another,  e.g., 
the  Little  Iliad,  the  action  of  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  does  not  clash 
with  or  overlap  that  of  any  cyclic 
poem.  We  may  say  that  this  is 
accidental  ;  that  the  authors  of  the 
four  poems  which  touch  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  knew  nothing  of 
Homer,  nor  he  anything  of  them, 
and  that  they  all  happened  to  just 
avoid  each  other's  ground.  But 
this  is  too  improbable  to  be  readily 
accepted.  It  is  much  more  likely 
that  either  Homer  found  the  Cyclics 
or  they  found  Homer  in  possession 
of  certain  ground  and  intentionally 
avoided  poaching  on  the  preserve. 
We  have  therefore  to  draw  one 
of  two  conclusions  ;  either  Homer 
found  the  Cyclics  in  existence,  and 
forbore  to  go  over  their  ground 
again,  for  lear  of  challenging  a 
comparison  with  them  unfavour- 
able to  himself — a  modesty  which 
has  received  its  reward  in  the  re- 
spect shown  to  Homer  by  every 
generation  of  civilised  men  since 
his  time ;  or  the  cyclics  found 
Homer  in  possession  of  certain 
ground,  and  seeing  that  they  could 
not  improve  on  Homer,  contented 
themselves  with  occupying  the  space 
that  he  had  left — a  decision  the 
wisdom  of  which  is  seen  in  the 
fast  that  it  allowed  their  work  to 


live  by  the  side  of  Homer  for  many 
centurii's,  while  its  soundness  ia 
sliown  by  the  universal  verdict  in 
favour  of  the  superiority  of  Homer.^ 
Further,  it  is  necessary  to  ob- 
serve that  there  is  the  same  sharp 
line  between  tlie  subjects  of  Homer 
and  Pindar,  of  Homer  and  the  Tra- 
gedians, as  there  is  between  Homer 
and  the  Cyclics.  Now,  either  Pin- 
dar and  the  Tragedians  knew  Homer 
or  they  did  not.  Both  views  have 
been  held  ;  let  us  see  what  each 
view  implies.  According  to  the 
view  that  Pindar  and  the  tragedians 
had  no  acquaintance  with  Homer, 
this  was  because  Homer  was  a  late 
compilation  from  the  floating  pop- 
ular legend  which  recounted  the 
tale  of  Troy.  This  compilation  was 
made  about  B.C.  420,  for  the  satis- 
faction of  the  reading  public,  which 
then  was  coming  into  existence  for 
the  first  time.  But  according  to 
this  view,  not  only  were  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey  compilations  from 
the  unwritten  tale  of  Troy,  but  the 
Cypria,  jEthiopis,  Little  Iliad,  the 
Sack,  the  Return,  and  the  other 
cyclic  poems  also  were  compilations 
from  the  same  source,  and  were 
made  about  the  same  time  as  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey.  The  same  ar- 
guments which  show  that  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  as  we  have  them  must 
have  been  later  than  B.C.  430,  and 
could  not  have  been  the  work  of  an 
author  living  before  B.C.  700,  also 
show  that  the  Cypria,  ^thiopis,  &c., 
could  not  have  taken  separate  and 
distinct  form  before  B.C.  420,  and 
could  not  have  been  the  work  of 
authors  living  in  the  earliest  times. 
"All  these,  I  am  confident,"  says 
Mr.  Paley,  "  were  written  epitomes 
of  difi'erent  parts  of  a  story,  which 


1  Of  coarse  it  might  be  said  that  Homer  found  the  Cyclics  in  possession  of 
the  field  and  chose  ground  not  occupied  by  them,  because  it  was  best  fitted 
for  his  purpose,  not  because  he  feared  comparison.  But  against  this  we 
have  to  set  the  improbability  of  the  Cyclics  having  just  left  room  for  the 
Iliad  between  the  Cypria  and  tlie  jEthiopis,  and  for  the  Odyssey  between  the 
Return  and  the  Telegonia.  We  should  also  have  to  assume  that  Homer 
undertook  the  function  of  writing  an  introduction  to  the  Telegonia,  of  all 
poems ! 

E 


66 


HISTORY  OF  GBEEK  LITERATURE. 


in  the  time  of  oral  recitation  formed 
one  general  and  undistinguished 
whole."  Thus,  according  to  Mr. 
Paley,  Homer  and  the  Cyclics  are 
both  later  than  Pindar  and  the 
Tragedians,  and  Homer  is  later 
than  the  Cyclics.  Therefore,  in 
order  to  explain  why  the  part  of 
the  tale  of  Troy  which  is  found  in 
Homer  is  not  touched  on  by  Pindar, 
the  Tra,£:;edians,  or  the  Cyclics,  we 
must  either  believe  that  Pindar  and 
the  Tragedians,  having  exactly  the 
same  unwritten  tale  of  Troy  to  draw 
upon  as  Homer,  by  some  extraor- 
dinary chance  managed  to  avoid 
precisely  the  incidents  afterwards 
selected  by  the  compiler  of  our 
Homer  ;  or  else  we  must  believe 
that  the  unfortunate  compiler  came 
on  to  the  field  after  Pindar,  the 
Tragedians,  and  the  compilers  of  the 
cyclic  poems  had  used  up  all  the 
incidents  in  the  legend  of  Troy 
which  they  thought  fit  for  their 
purpose.  Then  we  must  further 
believe  that  the  incidents  which 
lyric  poets,  dramatists,  and  epic 
compilers  —  indeed  all  the  poets 
Greece  possessed — had  one  after 
another  deliberately  rejected  as  un- 
fit for  any  kind  of  poetic  treatment 
whatever — these  incidents,  as  soon 
as  they  were  strung  together  by 
some  obscure  compiler,  whose  very 
name  is  lost  beyond  conjecture,  at 
once  obtained  a  success  and  a  repu- 
tation which  wholly  eclipsed  every 
other  epic  compilation,  at  once  took 
rank  above  the  poetry  of  the  great- 
est poets,  was  at  once  honoured 
with  the  name  of  Homer,  and,  fin- 
ally, in  spite  of  its  modern  allusions, 
its  late  and  bastard  dialect,  and  its 


obvious  patchwork  character,  wa* 
unanimously  declared  by  Greek 
critics  of  all  kinds  to  possess  the 
very  highest  antiquity  and  to  be  a 
model  of  epic  unity.  ^  There  have 
been  instances  of  literary  forgery 
in  ancient  and  recent  times,  but 
surely  none  deserves  to  rank  by 
the  side  of  our  Homer,  which  thua 
deceived  the  very  elect  of  nations, 
a  people  whose  taste  was  trained  in 
the  finest  literature  a  country  ever 
possessed,  whose  linguistic  sensi- 
tiveness is  unparalleled,  whether 
viewed  from  the  side  of  philology 
or  of  literature,  whose  collective 
powers  of  criticism  were  a  pruning- 
knife,  that  allowed  none  but  the 
pure  works  of  genius  to  flourish. 

Fortunately  we  are  not  compelled 
to  accept  such  an  improbable  theory 
as  results  from  assuming  that  Homer 
was  later  than  the  Tragedians.  We 
have  the  alternative  of  assuming 
that  Homer  preceded  Pindar  and 
the  Tragedians.  But  on  this  as- 
sumption we  have  to  explain  why 
Pindar  and  the  Tragedians  avoided 
the  ground  chosen  by  Homer,  and 
the  same  explanation  should  also 
explain  why  the  cyclicpoets  avoided 
Homer's  ground.  In  the  first  place, 
we  have  the  reason  given  by  Aris- 
totle ;  the  subjects  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  are  so  simple  that  they  do 
not  afford  material  for  more  than 
one  or  two  plays.  The  subject 
of  the  Odyssey  is  the  return  of 
Odysseus  ;  of  the  Iliad,  the  wrath  of 
Achilles.  Each  subject  is  indivi- 
sible ;  it  would  be  practically  im- 
possible to  construct  a  play  which 
should  have,  say,  the  first  half  of 
the  story  in  the  Iliad  for  its  plot, 


^  Mr.  Paley  at  least  will  not  allege  that  the  fame  of  our  Homer  is  due  to 
the  way  in  which  his  compiler  strung  together  these  incidents,  which  were 
rejected  by  all  other  poets.  Antimachus,  or  whoever  it  was,  was  merely  a  com- 
piler, not  an  author.  ("  I  never  said  or  spoke  of  late  authorship.'" — Post  Epit 
Words,  p.  27,  n.  I.)  The  merit  of  the  poems,  according  to  Mr.  Paley,  is  that 
they  contain  pieces  of  beautiful  ancient  work  set  together,  in  which,  as  be- 
longing to  the  "  one  and  undistinguished  whole,"  formed  by  the  tale  of  Troy 
in  the  time  of  oral  recitation,  must  have  been  known  to  the  Tragedian* 
(though  not  known  in  their  present  connection),  and  yet  were  rejected  by 
ifaem. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  EPIC  CYCLE. 


6/ 


and  be  coir^plete.  In  the  next  place, 
to  tell  the  story  of  Odysseus'  re- 
turn or  Achilles'  wrath  over  again 
in  the  same  way  as  Homer  told  it, 
would  be  to  challenge  Homer,  the 
greatest  of  poets,  on  his  own  ground ; 
and  it  is  a  proof  of  the  sound  judg- 
ment of  Greek  authors  that  none 
we  know  imagined  he  could  gild 
Homer's  refined  gold,^  or  tell  Ho- 
mer's tale  better  than  Homer  told 
it.*  But  it  may  be  said  that  even 
if  the  plot  ot  the  Iliad  or  the  Odys- 
sey does  not  admit  of  much  drama- 
tisation, there  are  many  episodes 
which  can  be  detached  from  the 
plot,  and  would  suffice  to  make  a 
drama.  This  is  true  ;  and  it  is  just 
in  dramatising  these  episodes  that 
the  Tragedians  show  they  were  ac- 
quainted with  both  what  is  told  in 
our  Homer,  and  with  the  way  in 
which  it  is  told  by  our  Homer.  The 
death  of  Agamemnon  is  no  part  of 
the  plot  of  the  Odyssey,  though  it 
is  alluded  to  in  the  poem.  The 
death  of  Agamemnon,  therefore, 
was  made  the  catastrophe  of  the 
Return  and  the  subject  of  tragedies. 
Homer's  allusions  to  the  matter  are 
slight  enough  to  allow  of  other 
authors  developing  the  hint,  and 
filling  up  the  sketch  in  their  own 
fashion  ;  and  we  find  that  the 
author  of  the  Return  and  iEschylus 
have  each  developed  Homer's  out- 
line after  their  own  fashion,  and  in 
a  way  which  shows  that  Jischylus 
did  not  follow  the  non-Homeric 
version  more  closely  than  he  fol- 
lows Homer.  The  author  of  the 
Return  made  the  death  of  Agamem- 
non to  be  the  consequence  of  the 
wrath  of  Athene.  The  Greeks,  by 
not  punishing  Ajax  for  his  offence 
against  the  goddess,  incurred  her 
wrath ;  and  Agamemnon,  as  the 
leader  and   representative   of    the 


Greeks,  paid  in  his  own  person  fof 
his  followers'  fault.  iEschylus  alsd 
gives  a  theological  colouring,  as  it 
were,  to  the  cause  of  Agamemnon's 
doom  ;  but  instead  of  attributing  it 
ultimately  to  the  offence  of  Ajax, 
he  uses  it  to  confirm  his  theory  that 
the  mystery  of  undeserved  suffer- 
ing is  to  be  explained  by  guilt  in 
the  sufferer's  ancestors.  In  the 
same  way,  every  incident  in  the 
tale  of  Troy  which  does  not  come 
within  the  action  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey,  but  belongs  to  the  causes 
or  consequences  of  the  action,  has 
been  worked  by  other  authors  into 
epic  or  dramatic  form.  Further, 
although  neither  any  epic  or  any 
tragic  poet  ventured  to  challenge 
comparison  with  Homer  on  his  own 
ground,  the  like  respect  was  paid 
neither  by  epic  poets  to  each  other, 
nor  by  the  Tragedians  to  epic  poets. 
But  not  only  do  the  epic  and 
tragic  poets,  both  by  the  incidents 
in  the  tale  of  Troy  which  they  ac- 
cept and  those  they  reject,  show 
an  evident  acquaintance  with  our 
Homer,  and  distinguish  between 
the  plot  and  the  episodes  of  each 
of  the  Homeric  poems  :  there  are 
parallelisms  between  the  Cyclicsand 
Homer  which  seem  to  be  cases  of 
imitation.  For  instance,  in  the 
Telegonia,  Telegonus,  the  son  of 
Odysseus  and  Circe,  sets  forth  on 
an  expedition  to  obtain  tidings  of 
his  father ;  in  the  Odyssey,  Tele- 
machus,  the  son  of  Odysseus  and 
Penelope,  does  the  same.  Now  it 
seems  difficult  to  avoid  the  conclu- 
sion that  one  author  borrowed  the 
idea  from  the  other  ;  and  if  this  is 
a  case  of  plagiarism,  we  have  to 
remember  that,  in  order  to  prova 
Homer  to  be  later  than  the  Cyclics, 
we  must  say  that  he  plagiarised, 
and  plagiarised  from  an  author  who 


^  Somebody  did  dramatise  Homer's  own  subjects,  for  Aristotle  says  so. 
But  the  very  names  of  both  author  and  tragedy  have  perished— the  punish- 
ment of  presumption. 

2  "  To  attempt  to  tell  the  story  [of  Falstaff's  life]  in  better  words  than 
Shakespeare,  would  occur  to  no  one  bnt  Miss  Braddon,  who  has  epitomised 
Sir  "Walter,  kc."— Obiter  Dicta,  p.  828, 


68 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


brought  his  poem  to  a  fitting  close 
by  making  Telegonus  marry  Pene- 
lope, and  Telemachus  marry  Circe. 
Again,  in  the  Cypria,  Achilles  and 
Agamemnon  quarrel.  Achilles  with- 
draws from  the  fighting,  and  the 
Trojans  gain  successes  until  Achil- 
les comes  forth  from  his  tent.  In 
the  Cypria  this  is  hut  an  episode, 
while  in  the  Iliad  a  similar  quarrel 
(which  has  a  different  origin)  con- 
stitutes the  subject  of  the  whole 
poem.  In  the  uEthiopis,  again, 
Antilochus,  the  friend  of  Achilles, 
is  slain  by  Memnon.  Achilles,  in 
spite  of  the  prophetic  warning  of 
his  mother  Thetis,  takes  vengeance 
on  Memnon,  kills  him,  and  then  is 
killed  himself.  In  the  Iliad  it  is 
Patroclus  who  is  slain  by  Hector, 
and  it  is  the  vengeance  on  Hector 
which  Thetis  warns  Achilles  will 
be  followed  by  his  own  death.  An- 
other parallelism  from  the  JEthio- 
pis  is  to  be  found  in  the  funeral 
games  with  which  the  body  of 
Achilles,  as  in  the  Iliad  the  body 
of  Patroclus,  is  honoured.  From 
the  Little  Iliad  we  may  take  the 
way  in  which  Menelaus  insults  the 
body  of  Paris  before  it  is  returned 
for  burial  to  the  Trojans,  as  parallel 
to  the  treatment  of  Hector's  body 
by  Achilles  in  the  Iliad.  In  the 
Return  there  was  a  descent  to  the 
nether  world,  which  at  once  sug- 
gests that  of  Odysseus  in  the  Iliad. 
Further,  we  may  notice  that  the 
characteristics  of  certain  actors  in 
the  tale  are  repeated  in  a  way  not 
likely  to  have  occurred  indepen- 
dently to  two  authors.  In  the 
Cypria,  Nestor,  when  consulted  by 
Menelaus  about  the  recovery  of 
Helen,  at  once  makes  a  long  speech 
full  of  ancient  instances,  exactly 
parallel  to  his  speech  in  the  em- 
bassy to  Achilles  in  the  Iliad. 
Again,  in  the  ^thiopis,  Thersites  is 
as  obnoxious  as  in  the  Iliad,  talk- 
ing ribaldry  about  Achilles  and  the 
Amazon  Penthesilea. 

In  all  these  cases,  if  Homer  is 
more  ancient  than  the  Cyclics,  as 
sound  judgment  declares,  and  as  is 


agreed  upon  by  the  immense  majo« 
rity  of  writers  on  the  subject,  tha 
Cyclics  have  imitated  incidents  in 
Homer,  changing  either  the  namea 
of  the  actors  or  the  occasion  of  the 
scene.  But  if,  as  most  people  will 
allow,  this  is  so,  we  may  derive 
from  the  cyclics  valuable  informa- 
tion as  to  the  contents  of  Homer  in 
their  time.  For  instance,  the  ex- 
pedition of  Telegonus  in  quest  of 
news  of  his  father  shows  that  in 
the  Odyssey,  which  the  author  of 
the  7'elegonia  possessed,  the  expedi- 
dition  of  Telemachus  was  an  inte- 
gral portion.  That  is  to  say,  since 
we  have  no  reason  to  doubt  the  date 
assigned  by  the  chronologists  to 
Eugamon,  the  author  of  the  Tele- 
gonia,  viz.,  B.C.  560  or  B.C.  570, 
then  what  is  called  the  Telemaehia 
of  our  Odyssey  was  part  of  the  poem 
at  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury. So,  too,  the  scene  in  the 
nether  world  in  the  Retnrn  shows 
that  the  Nekuia  of  the  Odyssey  be- 
longed to  the  poem  when  Agias — • 
if  he  was  the  author— lived.  His 
date  we  do  not  know  :  we  can  only 
say  that  the  literary  superiority  of 
the  Return  to  the  Telegonia  makes 
it  probable  that  it  belongs  to  an 
earlier  period.  Further,  if  the  Re- 
turn is  but  an  expansion  of  the 
sketch  given  in  the  early  books  of 
the  Odj'ssey  of  the  adventures  of 
Menelaus,  Agamemnon,  and  Nestor 
on  their  return  from  Troy,  we  carry 
back  the  Telemaehia  to  before  the 
time  of  the  Return. 

The  information  we  derive  from 
the  Cyclics  as  to  the  form  and  con- 
tents of  the  Iliad  is  even  more  valu- 
able. The  last  two  books  of  the 
Iliad  have  been  frequently  con- 
demned as  late  additions ;  but  it 
any  rate,  they  were  probably  sn 
integral  part  of  tJie  Iliad  before 
the  time  of  the  Little  Iliad  or  the 
j£thiopis,  for  the  funeral  games  of 
Achilles  in  the  latter,  and  the  con- 
tumelious treatment  of  Paris'  body 
in  the  former,  are  imitated  from 
what  is  related  in  Iliad  xxiii.  and 
xxiv.     Now  Lesches,  the  author  of 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  HYMNS. 


69 


the  TAitle  Iliad,  is  dated  B.C.  700 ; 
Arctinus,  the  author  of  the  jEthio- 
pis,  B.C.  770;  and  although  we 
have  no  means  of  judging  on  what 
grounds  Eusebius  and  Hieronymus  ^ 
dated  these  early  authors,  we  have 
no  grounds  for  disputing  their 
dates.  Again,  the  behaviour  of 
Thersites  in  the  jEthiopis,  and  the 


garrulousnesa  of  Nestor  in  the  Cyp- 
ria,  are  reproductions  of  scenes 
which  occur  in  Iliad  ii.  and  ix.,  i.e, 
in  books  which,  according  to  Mr. 
Grote,  were  not  part  of  the  original 
Iliad.  These  books  then  appear  to 
have  been  part  of  the  Iliad  at  least 
before  B.C.  770.^ 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE    HOMERIC    HYMNS. 


The  Homeric  hymns  are  a  collection  of  upwards  of  thirty 
poems  written  in  hexameter  verse.  They  vary  in  length  from 
three  lines  to  six  hundred,  the  majority  being  short.  They 
belong  to  widely  different  ages,  and  consequently  to  very  various 
authors.  The  motives  with  which  they  were  composed  were 
different,  though  the  majority  appear  to  have  had  the  same 
object.  The  authorship  is  in  all  cases  extremely  doubtful,  and 
their  literary  merit  varies  considerably.  They  are  called 
Homeric  because  they  were  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  Homer 
or  of  Homeric  poets ;  and  some  are  hymns  in  the  original  rather 
than  in  the  later  sense  of  the  word.  That  is  to  say,  they  are 
songs,  not  necessarily  addressed  to  or  telling  of  the  gods,  and, 
when  a  god  is  their  subject,  they  are  not  necessarily  of  a  devo- 
tional character.  The  Greek  word  hymnos  was  used  by  Homer 
of  the  lays  of  minstrels,  such  as  the  lay  of  the  wooden  horse, 
or  of  the  taking  of  Troy,  or  of  the  loves  of  Aphrodite  and  Ares. 
Any  song  which  related  the  glorious  deeds  of  men  or  gods  was 
originally  a  "  hymn."  Later,  the  word  in  Greek  came  to  have 
a  special  sense,  and  to  mean  a  prayer  in  verse ;  in  which  sense 
the  word  rightly  describes  some  of  the  Homeric  hymns. 

The  majority  of  the  hymns  are  short,  and  the  short  hymns 
are  prayers  and  invocations.     Let  us,  therefore,  see  what  is 

1  Eusebius  was  Bishop  of  Csesarea  about  a.D.  320.  His  chronology,  which 
is  of  great  value  to  the  historians  of  ancient  times,  and  has  received  many 
confirmations  from  modern  discoveries,  was  contained  in  his  HavroSair^ 
'IffTopla  (from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  A.D,  325),  We  have  only  frag- 
ments of  this  work,  translated  into  Latin,  and  continued  by  Hieronymus. 

^  This,  of  course,  does  not  affect  Mr.  Grote's  theory,  which  regards  the 
later  books  as  added  on  to  the  Iliad  immediately  after  the  time  of  Homer, 
which,  according  to  Herodotus,  was  about  B.C.  850. 


70  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

prayed  for,  or  why  the  gods  are  invoked,  and  tlieu  we  may  ba 
able  to  see  why  these  poems,  though  of  different  ages  and 
origin,  have  been  collected  together.  When  the  collection  waa 
made  may  be  discussed  subsequently.  In  some  cases  the  prayer 
seems  to  be  merely  a  general  one  for  blessing  and  happiness. 
For  instance,  the  hymn  to  Athene  (xi.)  contains  four  lines  ad- 
dressed to  the  goddess  describing  her  attributes,  and  concludes 
"  Hail,  goddess  !  and  grant  us  fortune  and  happiness."  So,  too, 
in  the  hymn  to  Heracles  (xv.),  the  poet  says,  in  effect,  I  will 
sing  of  Heracles,  son  of  Zeus  and  Alcmene,  who  did  and  suf- 
fered many  wondrous  things,  and  now  has  a  place  in  Olympus 
by  the  side  of  Hebe :  "  Hail,  king  !  son  of  Zeus  ;  grant  us  pro- 
sperity and  to  deserve  it."  I5ut  in  other  prayers  we  find  a 
much  more  definite  petition.  In  the  hymn  to  Hestia,  the  god- 
dess of  the  hearth  (xxiv.),  the  poet  prays  to  her,  wherever  she 
be,  to  visit  this  house  and  give  grace  to  his  song.  What  song 
she  is  to  give  grace  to  we  see  at  once  from  the  hymn  to  Selene 
(xxxii.),  the  moon,  which  ends,  "  Hail,  goddess  !  having  begun 
with  you,  I  will  sing  the  praise  of  demi-gods,  whose  deeds 
minstrels  make  famous."  The  demi-gods  are  the  heroes  of  the 
story  of  Troy  or  of  Thebes,  and  the  praise  which  the  bard,  after 
his  invocation  of  Selene,  is  about  to  sing  is  a  lay  of  his  own 
composition  or  a  portion  of  some  epic.  This  is  the  character 
of  the  collection  of  the  Homeric  hymns  as  a  whole.  They  are 
prayers  or  invocations  to  some  god,  made  by  a  minstrel  or  a 
rhapsodist  about  to  recite  an  epic  poem. 

Many  of  the  hymns  end  like  the  hymn  to  the  Dioscuri 
(xxxiii.)  :  "  Hail,  Tyndaridae  !  riders  of  fleet  horses,  and  I  will 
make  mention  of  you  in  another  song."  Why  the  poet  should 
make  mention  of  them,  or  whatever  god  he  prays  to,  in  another 
song  appears  from  the  end  of  the  hymn  to  the  Earth  (xxx.) : 
"  Hail,  mother  of  the  gods  !  spouse  of  the  starry  Sky  !  graciously 
grant  me  a  goodly  livelihood  in  return  for  my  song,  while  I 
will  make  mention  of  you  in  another  song."  If  the  god  hears 
the  prayer,  the  worshipper  will  continue  his  worship  ;  and  he 
prays  for  a  goodly  livelihood  because,  whether  a  wandering  bard 
or  a  rhapsodist,  it  is  by  the  poetic  art  he  makes  his  living. 
Other  hymns,  like  one  to  Hermes  (xviii.),  end,  "Hail,  son  of 
Zeus  and  Maia  !  having  begun  with  you,  I  will  go  on  to  another 
song."  These  too  are  evidently  preludes  to  the  recitation  of 
epic  poetry,  the  epic  poem  recited  being  the  other  song  which 
the  bard  will  go  on  to.  We  are  therefore  justified  in  conclud- 
ing that  hymns  such  as  the  one  to  Zeus  (xxiii.),  ending,  "Be 
gra(;ious,  son  of  Kronos,  most  glorious  and  greatest,"  although 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  HYMNS.  7  1 

they  contain  no  reference  to  the  recitation  which  the  minstrel 
is  about  to  make,  and  for  the  success  of  which  he  prays,  were, 
like  the  rest,  preludes  to  a  recitation.  But  two  exceptions  must 
be  made.  The  hymn  to  Poseidon  (xxii.)  expressly  prays  that 
the  god  will  help  those  at  sea,  and  the  hymn  to  Ares  (viii.) 
expressly  prays  for  peace.  ^  By  what  accident  these  two  hymns 
came  to  be  incorporated  in  a  collection  of  preludes  it  is  impos- 
sible now  to  say. 

Having  established  the  nature  of  the  hymns,  let  us  now  see 
what  is  known  about  the  practice  of  preluding  a  recitation  of 
epic  poetry  by  a  short  invocation.  There  is  in  Homer  a 
passage  which,  describing  the  bard  Demodocus  as  beginning 
the  lay  of  the  horse,  is  generally  translated,  "  He  being  stined 
by  the  god,  began ; "  but  it  is  probable  that  it  shoidd  be  trans- 
lated, "  He  being  stirred,  began  with  the  god,"  i.e.,  began  with 
a  brief  invocation,  such  as  we  have  in  the  hymns.^  In  tliis 
case  the  custom  goes  back  to  Homeric  times,  though  it  is 
doubtful  whether  any  of  the  hymns  go  back  to  so  early  a  date. 
There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  bards,  when  about  to  recite 
poems  of  their  own  composition,  made  a  brief  invocation ;  and 
a  short  hymn  to  Aphrodite  (x.),  which  prays  her  to  "  grant  a 
delightsome  song,"  seems  in  those  words  to  be  rather  the  prayer 
of  a  poet  about  to  recite  a  poem  of  his  own  than  of  a  rhapso  ■ 
dist.2  In  this  case.  Hymn  x.,  which  has  much  beauty  in  its 
brief  compass,  would  belong  to  the  epic  age,  i.e.,  to  the  time 

^  Probably  we  ought  to  include  among  the  exceptions  a  hymn  to  Dionysus 
(xxvi.),  which  ends — 

S6s  5'  T)ixas  xa^po'^ar  ^s  ^pas  atrii  tKeadai, 
€K  5'  aW'  wpdwv  els  roiii  iroWoiis  iviavrois. 
'  Od.  viii.  499,  6  5*  6piJ.r]dels  Oeov  ■fipxero. 

The  translation  given  above  is  somewhat  confirmed  by  a  general  resemblance 
between  the  formula  of  the  hymns  and  the  passage  in  the  Odyssey.  The 
latter  runs — 

fivdrjcrofjLai  d.v6pd)irot(nv 
us  ipa.  Toi  irp6<ppo}i>  debs  ibiraae  diairiv  doiSjjv. 
<bs  <pdd,  6  8'  bpp.r)dels  6eoO  Ijpxero. 

A  recollection  of  the  passage  seems  to  have  coloured  the  diction  of  the 
hymn  to  Helios  (xxxi,),  which  ends — 

Xatpe  &va^,  irp6<ppoov  dk  ^Lov  dvfiripe'  6Tra€e. 
iK  ffio  5'  af^d/JLevos,  k\-q<jo3  fj^pdiruf  -yivos  dvBpQp. 
(The  construction  without  iK  is  more  frequent  in  the  Hymns;  e.g.,  ix.  9 — 
<red  S'  iyd)  ap^ap-evos  p.era^T^O'Ofj.ai  dWo*  is  Sfivou). 
•  80  too  xxT.,  which  says  (6),  ifjLi]v  Tip.-f]aaT  dotbriv  ;  and  vi.  19'^ 

56$  5'  iv  dyisvi. 
riiaif  Tifde  ^ipeff6ai,  ip-i}P  S'  ivTvvov  doidijv. 


7  2  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

when  epic  poetry  was  still  being  composed.  Hymns  xxx. 
and  xxxi.,  which  pray  for  a  goodly  livelihood,  seem  mora 
appropriate  in  the  mouth  of  a  wandering  minstrel,  whose  living 
depended  on  the  success  of  what  he  sung,  than  to  a  rhapsodist 
who  won  prizes.  Hymns  xxiv.  and  xxix.,  which  are  addressed 
to  the  goddess  of  the  hearth,  indicate  the  nature  of  the  audience 
before  whom  the  minstrel  was  about  to  recite.  It  was  an 
audience  like  that  which  listened  to  Phemius  or  Demodocus 
in  the  Odyssey. 

But  rhapsodists  also  invoked  the  gods  to  favour  them  when 
competing  for  the  prize  of  recitation.  This  is  clearly  shown 
by  a  hymn  to  Aphrodite  (vi.)  which  ends,  "  Grant  me  to  win 
the  victory  in  this  contest"  Further,  there  is  a  passage  of 
great  interest  for  our  purpose  in  Thucydides  (iii.  104),  in  which 
he  quotes  from  one  of  the  Homeric  hymns  (that  to  Apollo,  i.) 
He  ascribes  the  hymn  to  Homer,  and  he  quotes  it  because  it 
refers  to  the  Ionian  festivals  held  in  Delos,  and  therefore  carries 
back  the  festival  to  the  time  of  Homer.  More  important  even 
than  this  is  it  that  he  calls  the  hymn  a  "  proem,"  that  is,  a 
prelude,  and  thus  provides  external  proof  for  the  conclusion 
pointed  to  by  the  hymns  themselves,  viz.,  that  they  introduced 
a  recitation  of  epic  poetry.  Whether  at  the  festivals  in  Delos 
original  poetry  alone  was  recited,  or  the  competition  was 
between  rhapsodists  reciting  the  works  of  others,  there  is 
nothing  to  prove.  But  the  lyric  poet  Terpander  composed  proems 
to  prelude  recitations  of  Homer  and  other  epic  poetry ;  and  the 
rhapsodists  doubtless  adopted  the  practice.  Indeed,  most  of 
the  hymns  may  be  regarded  as  the  invocations  used  by  rhapso- 
dists at  musical  contests,  though  we  need  not  go  the  length  of 
assuming  that  the  Homeric  hymns  were  a  collection  of  proems 
made  for  the  use  of  rhapsodists  competing  at  musical  festivals. 

Pindar  (Nem.  ii.  1-4)  also  says  that  rhapsodists  preluded 
their  recitations  with  an  invocation ;  but  he  says  that  they 
generally  invoked  Zeus.  At  first  this  seems  to  present  a  diffi- 
culty, for  only  one  of  the  Homeric  hymns  is  addressed  to  Zeus. 
But  the  plausible  suggestion  has  been  made  that  the  choice  of 
a  god  to  be  invoked  depended  frequently  on  the  place  in  which 
the  recitation  was  held.  For  instance,  a  minstrel  about  to 
recite  his  poem  in  a  chieftain's  ball  might  very  naturally  invoke 
the  goddess  of  the  hearth,  Hestia ;  as  indeed  is  done  in  two  of 
the  hymns.  A  rhapsodist  competing  in  the  festivals  at  Delos 
would  appropriately  invoke  the  god  of  the  festival  and  the 
island,  Apollo.  In  the  same  way  it  is  probable  that  the  names 
of  the  gods  to  whom  the  various  Homeric  hymns  are  addressed 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  HYMNS,  7  3 

indicate  the  locality  or  the  festival  at  which  the  recitations 
they  preluded  took  place.  Thus  the  hymn  to  Demeter  was 
probably  used  at  Eleusinia,  The  hymn  to  Artemis  (ix,),  in 
which  Apollo  is  mentioned,  was  probably  in  use  at  the  festival 
held  in  honour  of  the  two  deities  at  Claros  near  Colophon. 
The  hymn  to  Aphrodite  (x.),  in  which  Salamis,  in  Cyprus,  is 
mentioned,  would  be  connected  with  the  festival  of  the  goddess 
in  Salamis.  Invocations  to  Zeus  being  equally  appropriate 
under  all  circumstances,  would  naturally  be  frequent.  Thus 
the  words  of  Pindar  confirm  the  conclusion  that  most  of  the 
hymns  were  the  work  of  or  used  by  rhapsodists. 

As  yet  we  have  made  no  special  reference  to  the  first  four 
Homeric  hymns.  Three  of  them  are  as  long  as  the  average 
book  in  Homer,  and  the  other  one  is  over  290  lines.  A  diffi- 
culty therefore  has  been  felt  in  believing  that  these  long  hymns 
could  have  been  meant  as  preludes  to  a  recitation,  since  they 
are  long  enough  for  a  recitation  in  themselves.  Various  w^ays 
out  of  the  difficulty  have  been  imagined.  The  expansion 
theory,  which  plays  so  large  a  part  in  the  reconstruction  of  the 
"  original "  Homer,  has  been  applied  to  the  Homeric  hymns. 
It  is  said  that  these  long  hymns  were  originally  short,  but  wer^^ 
gradually  interpolated  and  expanded  to  their  present  lengtlir 
But  why  rhapsodists  should  defeat  their  own  object  and  stultify 
themselves  in  this  manner  it  is  difficult  to  see.  If  in  their 
present  form  they  are  too  long  to  serve  the  purpose  for  which 
they  were  intended,  it  is  vain  to  say  they  have  reached  it  by 
expansion.  If  rhapsodists  would  not  compose  preludes  (or 
epics)  too  long  for  their  purpose,  neither  would  they  expand 
them  to  such  a  length.  A  more  reasonable  theory  is  that  the 
interpolations  are  much  later  than  the  time  of  rhapsodists ; 
that  they  are  the  work  of  stupid  scribes,  or  perhaps  of  editors. 
The  text  is  indeed  in  a  very  bad  state,  and  there  are  many 
obscurities,  due  in  all  probability  to  stupid  interpolations.  In- 
deed, the  first  hymn  to  Apollo  is  really  two  distinct  hymns  run 
together.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  many  obscurities  are  due  to 
equally  stupid  omissions.  Incomplete  as  tlie  text  is,  it  would 
be  much  more  incomplete  had  not  Matthaei  in  1772  discovered 
a  manuscript  in  a  stable  at  Moscow  containing  a  fragment  of 
a  hymn  to  Dionysus  and  a  long  hymn  to  Demeter,  hitherto 
wanting  in  the  MSS.  of  the  Homeric  hymns.  It  is  not  im- 
probable, therefore,  that,  with  a  complete  text,  we  should  find 
the  interpolations  in  our  text  balanced  by  the  lacunae. 

Another  theory  is,  that  as  each  rhapsodist  preluded  his  own 
recitation  by  a  short  invocation,  so  the  whole  contest  was  opened 


74  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

by  a  long  hymn,  which  served  as  a  prehide  to  the  whole  pro 
ceedings.  But  this  is  a  pure  conjecture,  supported  by  nothing 
in  the  hymns  themselves,  nor  by  any  analogy  outside  of  them. 
There  remains  yet  another  conjecture  to  be  mentioned ;  it  is 
that  the  long  hymns  are  not  preludes  at  all,  but  lays  with 
which  the  authors  actually  competed  for  the  prize ;  that,  in 
fact,  we  have  in  them  specimens  of  the  lays  of  which,  on  the 
accretion  theory  of  Homer,  the  Homeric  poems  are  a  fortui- 
tous aggregation.  This  conjecture  seems  refuted  by  the  fact 
that  the  long  hymns,  like  the  short  ones,  end  with  the  de- 
claration that  the  poet  having  begun  with  the  god,  will  now 
go  on  to  his  recitation.  But  the  general  stupidity  of  the  MSS. 
makes  it  possible  that  these  verses  have  got  tagged  on  to 
poems  to  which  they  do  not  belong.  A  more  fatal  objection  is 
that  the  hymn  to  Apollo  which  Thucydides  ascribes  to  Homer, 
and  which  seems  to  have  been  a  prelude,  not  an  independent 
poem,  contains  178  lines.  Having  exhausted  the  various  con- 
jectures made  on  the  subject,  and  having  found  none  of  them 
satisfactory,  we  must  expand  our  notions  of  what  rhapsodists 
could  recite  and  Greek  audiences  listen  to.  If  178  lines  were 
not  too  much  as  a  prelude  to  the  real  business  of  recitation, 
possibly  neither  were  five  hundred. 

Although  the  different  hymns  belong  to  different  dates,  that 
to  the  Delian  Apollo  being  the  oldest,  they  probably  most  of 
them  belong,  if  not  to  the  epic  period,  to  a  time  not  very  long 
after  it.  The  question  how  old  this  collection  is  is  different. 
The  very  faulty  condition  of  the  text,  with  other  considerations, 
makes  it  probable  that  the  collection  was  made  after  Alexan- 
drine times.  The  oldest  reference  to  be  found  to  it  is  in  Philo- 
demos,  who  was  contemporary  with  Cicero.  The  difference 
between  the  lines  from  the  hymn  to  Apollo,  as  quoted  by 
Thucydides  and  as  they  stand  in  our  text,  is  considerable,  and 
shows  that  the  hymn  had  been  transmitted  orally — and  with 
the  consequent  variations — for  some  time  before  it  was  com- 
mitted to  writing.  At  the  same  time,  the  spelling  shows  that 
probably  it  was  committed  to  writing  before  the  completion  of 
the  alphabet  in  the  archonship  of  Euclides  ;  whereas  the  other 
hymns  were  probably  not  written  down  until  after  that  period. ^ 

'  E.g.,  when  the  hymn  to  Apollo  was  meta-characteiised,  'ETBON  wa«  in- 
correctly transliterated  into  eh^usv  instead  of  eC^ovv.  The  absence  of  such 
mistakes  of  transliteration  in  the  other  hymns  makes  it  probable  that  they 
were  not  transliterated,  but  written  down  for  the  first  time  after  the 
completion  of  the  alphabet.  In  xii.  3  the  reading  ffdd}  may  mislead.  It 
looks  like  a  false  transliteration  of  SAO  =  <t6.ov.  But  the  MSS.  read  adoit, 
2d(d  ia  a  correction  (!)  by  Barnes.     Editors  should  restore  aAiw. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    THE  HOMERIC  HYMNS.  7  J 

Hen  we  may  appropriately  mention  some  other  poems  which, 
as  well  as  the  hymns,  were  accounted  Homeric  in  ancient  times. 
The  most  famous  is  the  Alargites.  This  poem,  which  unfortu- 
nately has  not  survived  to  our  time,  took  its  name  from  the 
hero.  Margites  was  the  very  personification  of  folly.  As  we 
learn  from  a  fragment,  he  knew  many  things,  and  knew  them 
all  equally  badly.  Being  unable  to  count  more  than  five,  he 
set  to  work  to  enumerate  the  waves  of  the  sea.  From  this  we 
can  infer  to  a  certain  extent  the  nature  of  the  poem.  In  the 
first  place,  it  was  not  a  parody  ;  in  the  next,  it  was  not  a  per- 
sonal attack  upon  any  one.  It  was  general  in  its  character, 
and  depended  for  its  success  in  provoking  mirth  on  the  humour 
with  which  the  author  described  the  situations  into  which 
Margites  was  naturally  brought  by  his  folly.  Aristotle  regarded 
it  as  standing  in  the  same  relation  to  comedy  as  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  to  tragedy ;  and  he  regarded  the  Margites,  as  well  as 
the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  as  the  work  of  Homer.  Its  popu- 
larity was  great  in  antiquity.  The  Stoic  Zeno  is  said  by  Dion 
Chrysostom  (53,  4)  to  have  written  a  treatise  on  it.  But  it 
can  be  traced  back  safely  farther  than  the  time  of  Zeno,  for 
Archilochus,  whose  date  is  about  B.C.  700,  was  acquainted  with 
it.  "Whether,  however,  the  Margites  was  the  work  of  Homer, 
it  is  difficult  to  say.  The  absence  of  any  mention  of  it  in  the 
better  scholia  on  Homer  has  been  regarded  as  an  indication  that 
the  Alexandrian  critics  did  not  rank  it  as  Homeric.  Further, 
Suidas  1  and  Proclus  attribute  it  to  Pigres,  the  brother  of  Arte- 
misia, the  queen  of  Halicarnassus,  who  distinguished  herself  in 
the  Persian  wars.  But  this  seems  to  have  been  merely  a  con- 
jecture based  on  the  inadequate  ground  that  Pigres  interpolated 
the  Iliad  with  pentameters,  and  the  Margites  contained  iambics 
mixed  with  hexameters.  Further,  the  poem  can  be  traced 
farther  back  than  Pigres,  as  far  as  Archilochus.  The  mixture 
of  iambics  with  hexameters  does  indeed  seem  to  show  that  the 
Margites  belongs  to  a  time  when  iambic  poetry  was  struggling 
into  being,  and  the  epic  age  passing  away.  This  would  make 
the  poem  to  be  post-Homeric ;  but  against  it  we  have  to  set  tha 
fact  that  Aristotle  regarded  Homer  as  the  author. 

Other  humorous  poems  attributed  to  Homer,  and  now  lost, 
were   the  Cercopes,  the  Epicichlides,  and  the  Caminoa.     The 

^  Suidas  probably  lived  about  A.D.  1000.  He  wrote  a  lexicon,  compiled 
from  a  variety  of  sources,  previous  dictionaries,  scholia,  and  the  writings  of 
grammarians.  He  did  not  possess  much  power  of  discriminating  between 
good  and  bad  authority  for  a  statement  ;  and  it  is  unsafe  to  rely  on  what 
be  says,  unless  it  is  probable,  for  some  reason  or  other,  that  he  is  quoting 
from  a  good  authority. 


76  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATUBE. 

Cercopes,  like  the  Margites,  seems  to  have  been  the  literary 
version  of  a  popular  tale  ;  and  the  tale,  at  least,  was  of  soma 
antiquity,  since  it  afforded  a  subject  for  one  of  the  metopes  of 
Selinus.  Besides  these  poems  which  have  not  survived,  there 
is  another  humorous  poem  which  has  survived,  the  Batracho- 
myomacMa,  or  Battle  of  the  Frogs  and  Mice.  This  is  not  based 
on  any  popular  tale ;  it  is  a  parody  of  warlike  epics,  and  pre- 
supposes some  literary  cultivation  for  its  appreciation.  It 
possesses,  however,  no  literary  merit,  and  only  occasional  flashes 
of  humour,  e.g.,  the  reappearance  of  a  combatant  after  having 
been  severely  wounded  or  even  killed — a  just  parody  on  the 
disregard  of  Homeric  heroes  for  wounds  which  should  have  put 
them  hors  de  combat.  The  Batraclwmyomachia  cannot  be  the 
work  of  Homer,  and  the  only  ground  for  allowing  it  any 
antiquity  is  the  statement  of  Suidas  that  it  was  written  by 
Pigres.  But  as  he  also  attributes  the  Margites  to  the  same 
author,  it  is  probable  he  has  confused  the  two  poems.  It 
may,  indeed,  be  reasonably  doubted  whether  the  Batracho- 
myomacliia  belongs  to  the  classical  period  at  all.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  the  parody  was  successful  enough  to  lead  to  imitations, 
such  as  the  Psaromachia,  Arachnowachia,  and  Geranomaclda. 
Parodies  were  in  much  favour  in  Athens  during  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  war,  and  were  regularly  recited  at  festivals,  probably  at 
the  Panathensea.  The  most  distinguished  author  of  this  kind 
was  Hegemon  of  Thasos,  a  friend  of  Alcibiades,  who  composed 
a  Gigaiitomachia,  which  may  have  contained,  at  least,  refer- 
ences to  the  Sicilian  expedition.  In  the  next  century  Euboeus 
of  Paros,  and  after  him  Boeotus  of  Syracuse  and  Matron,  seem 
to  have  cultivated  parody  with  success. 

Finally,  a  few  Homeric  epigrams  have  survived  to  our  day. 
They  are  of  various  worth,  and  probably  of  difierent  dates. 
Wliether  any  go  back  to  Homer's  time,  there  is  nothing  to  show. 
They  include  epitaphs  and  gnomes  in  hexameters,  and,  most  in- 
teresting of  all,  the  Eiresione.  This  poem  gets  its  name  from  the 
olivs  or  laurel  twig  wound  round  i^ith  threads  of  wool,  which 
was  not  only  carried  by  supplicants,  but  was  also  carried  by 
boys  in  the  country  who  went  round  begging  from  house  to 
house,  and  singing  the  Eiresio7ie,  much  in  the  same  way  as  boya 
in  our  own  country  at  Christmas-time. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    HESIOD  AND  HESIODIC  POETRY.  "J  J 

CHAPTER  VI. 

HESIOD   AND   HESIODIC   POETRY. 

From  Homer  to  Hesiod  the  step  is  a  great  one.  To  say  that 
their  only  resemblance  is  that  they  are  both  in  Greek  and  both 
in  hexameters,  would  be  an  exaggeration,  though  not  a  great 
exaggeration.  In  subject,  object,  method,  style,  in  the  circum- 
stances under  which  they  were  produced,  and  the  place  and 
race  to  whicli  they  belong,  they  differ  widely.  When  Alex- 
ander the  Great  said  that  Homer  was  reading  for  kings,  Hesiod 
for  peasants,  he  gave  utterance  to  a  criticism  which  has  con- 
siderable truth  in  it. ;  The  contempt  for  Hesiod  implied  in  the 
judgment  is  perhaps  too  strong,  though  in  reading  him  we  can- 
not but  frequently  feel  that  we  are  in  the  tracts  of  hexameters 
rather  than  in  the  realms  of  poetry.  This  is  sometimes  as- 
cribed to  the  nature  of  the  subject.  But  the  Georgics  of  Virgil 
suffice  to  show  that  it  is  possible  for  a  poet  to  impart  at  least 
as  much  interest  to  farming  as  to  fighting ;  and  the  fact  re- 
mains, that  excellent  though  Hesiod  may  have  been  as  a  man  in 
all  matters  of  life,  he  was  not  a  great  poet,  hardly  a  poet  at  all. 
If  Alexander's  criticism  does  but  little  injustice  to  Hesiod's 
claims  to  be  counted  a  poet,  it  is  a  yet  more  just  expression 
of  the  difference  in  the  circumstances  under  which  and  the 
audience  for  which  the  two  authors  composed.  Homer  was, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  composer  for  kings,  and  Hesiod  for  peas- 
ants. Homer  took  for  a  subject  the  quarrel  between  the  divine 
Achilles  and  Agamemnon,  king  of  men.  Hesiod  takes  for  his 
text  the  lawsuit  between  his  brother  and  himself,  poor  farmers 
both,  though  not  both  honest.  In  Homer,  kings  are  heroes, 
whose  prowess  it  is  the  poet's  privilege  to  sing  of.  In  Hesiod, 
kings  are  the  unjust  judges  who  gave  a  verdict  against  the 
author,  and  are  to  be  shown  the  error  of  their  ways.  From  this 
difference  in  the  subject  and  its  treatment  we  may  fairly  infer 
a  difference  in  the  audience  to  which  the  two  authors  addressed 
themselves.  Amongst  farmers,  who  had  themselves  suffered 
from  the  injustice  of  kings,  Hesiod's  verses  would  be  as  welcome 
as  was  Homer's  poetry  in  a  palace ;  and  Alexander's  verdict 
shows  the  reception  which  would  have  been  accorded  to  Hesiod's 
Works  and  Days  by  royal  readers.  Here,  as  elsewhere  through- 
out the  history  of  classical  Greek  literature,  we  see  the  reaction 
of  audience  on  author,  and  the  way  in  which  the  demands  of 
the  public  determined  the  character  of  the  literature.  [ 


7  8  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

^If  Homer  and  Hesiod  differ  in  their  subjects,  they  differ 
quite  as  much  in  what  is  more  important,  their  objects ;  and 
this  again  is  doubtless  partly  due  to  their  difference  in  race 
and  place.  Homer's  object  is  simply  to  tell  his  story  in  the 
best  way.  "Tell  me,  Muse,  of  that  man  so  ready  at  need,"  is 
the  prayer  he  puts  up ;  or,  "  Sing,  goddess,  the  wrath  of 
Achilles,  Peleus'  son."  But  Hesiod's  object  is  not  to  tell  a  story, 
but  to  tell  the  truth.  He  informs  us  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Theogony  that  the  Muses  appeared  to  him  by  night,  when 
he  was  with  his  flocks  on  the  mountain  Helicon,  and  said  to 
him,  "  We  can  tell  many  lies  like  unto  the  truth,  but  we  can, 
when  we  wish,  say  what  is  true.''_j  From  this  it  is  clear  that 
Hesiod  regarded  the  fictions  of  Homer  with  the  same  moral 
C — ^condemnation  as  Solon  felt  for  acting,  which,  being  the  telling 
of  lies,  was  not  to  be  allowed  in  the  state.  The  Spartans  im- 
plied the  same  view  by  the  synonym  which  they  invented  for 
lying — "  Homerising  ; "  while  even  with  us,  to  "  romance  "  is  to 
"  tell  a  story,"  in  the  uncomplimentary  sense.  The  object  of 
Hesiod,  then,  was  to  tell  not  a  story,  but  the  truth.  Now  a 
poet  may  choose  for  his  poem  anything  he  likes  to  take,  from 
a  field-mouse  to  the  fall  of  man ;  and,  provided  that  he  pro- 
duces work  beautiful  in  itself  and  in  accordance  with  the  laws 
of  poetry,  criticism  which  carps  at  his  choice  of  subject  has  no 
value.  He  may  choose  to  tell  the  truth,  and  that  will  not  mar 
his  poetry.  Nor  will  it  make  mere  verses  poetry,  any  more 
than  it  will  make  a  bad  verse  scan.  A  statement  may  be  true, 
yet  not  beautifully  or  poetically  expressed :  witness  the  axioms 
of  Euclid.  And  the  inference  is  equally  false  whether  we  say 
this  is  true  and  therefore  poetical,  or  this  is  not  true  and  there- 
fore is  not  poetical.  In  fine,  whatever  the  poet  may  wish  to 
relate,  his  object  is  to  produce  poetry,  while  the  object  of 
Hesiod  was  not  to  produce  poetry  but  to  give  instruction.  The 
play  of  the  imagination,  which  is  essential  to  the  poetical 
treatment  of  any  theme,  Hesiod  evidently  looked  upon  with 
suspicion :  it  resulted  in  "  lies  like  the  truth  "  indeed,  but  not 
the  truth.  Whereas  he  wished  to  give  exact  information  about 
the  best  mode  of  conducting  a  farm,  about  the  evil  consequences 
of  idleness  and  injustice,  or  about  the  pedigree  of  the  gods. 
Hesiod  is  the  representative  of  didactic  poetry,  of  the  poetry 
which  is  designed  to  instruct.  The  popularity  he  enjoyed  in 
antiquity  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  fulfilled  his  object.  He 
did  instruct,  and  he  was  used  largely  for  purposes  of  instruc- 
tion. But  it  is  precisely  because  the  aim  of  instruction  wholly 
filled  his  field  of  vision  to  the  exclusion  of  the  poet's  proper 


EPIC  POETRY  :    HESIOD  AND  HESIODIC  POETRY.  79 

object — the   production   of  poetry — that  he  fails  of  being  a 
poet. 

"We  have  said  that  Hesiod's  didactic  object  was  due  to  the 
place  and  race  to  which  he  belonged.  He  was  an  .^olian  and 
a  Boeotian.  Boeotia  did  indeed  produce  isolated  geniuses — a 
poet,  Pindar ;  a  general,  Epaminondas.  But  the  dulness  of  the 
atmosphere  was  matched  by,  if  it  was  not  tiie  cause  of,  the  dul- 
ness of  the  population.  The  Athenians  called  their  neighbours 
'*  Boeotian  pigs ; "  and  country  and  people  alike  were  better 
fitted  for  cultivation  than  culture.  The  Homeric  poems,  on  the 
other  hand,  belonged  in  their  origin  to  Asia  Minor  and  the 
Ionian  race,  a  place  and  people  much  better  adapted  for  the 
development  of  the  sense  of  beauty  and  for  the  growth  of 
works  of  the  imagination.  Here  it  should  be  noticed,  that 
although  didactic  poetry  was  developed  in  Boeotia  and  epic  in 
Ionia,  the  two  kinds  of  literature  were  not  the  exclusive  posses- 
sion, the  one  of  the  one  people,  the  other  of  the  other.  As  epic 
poetry  has  a  history  before  Homer,  so  didactic  poetry  had  a 
development  before  Hesiod.  Poems  as  long  as  those  of  Hesiod, 
and  consisting  of  a  string  of  precepts  but  loosely  bound  to- 
gether, could  only  have  been  built  on  the  foundations  laid  by 
a  long  line  of  predecessors.;  As  the  Homeric  poems  are  the 
literary  and  artistic  version  of  various  popular  legends  and 
myths  and  folk-lore  woven  together  by  the  genius  of  the  poet, 
so  too  the  wise  saws  of  which  Hesiod's  WorJcs  and  Days  is 
made  up  were  drawn  from  the  experience  and  also  from  the 
superstitions  of  the  people.  Further,  as  popular  legends  had 
received  poetic  treatment  before  Homer's  time,  so  before  Hesiod 
"  the  wisdom  of  many "  had  been  shaped  into  form  by  "  the 
wit  of  the  few."  Precepts  for  the  conduct  of  life  were  put  into 
pointed  form  both  before  and  after  Hesiod's  time.  Such  were 
the  sayings  of  the  Seven  Wise  Men ;  and  in  later  times  at 
Athens,  Hipparchus,  the  son  of  Pisistratus,  had  verses  of  this 
kind  inscribed  on  the  milestones  and  the  images  of  Hermes.^ 
Didactic  poetry,  however,  did  not  limit  itself  to  teaching  mora- 
lity. Hesiod  gives  advice  concerning  the  condition  of  cattle  as 
weD  as  the  conduct  of  life,  on  marriage  as  well  as  morality. 
And  so,  too,  we  find  didactic  passages  in  the  Iliad,  e.g.,  the 
advice  of  Nestor  to  his  son  on  the  subject  of  racing ;  and  in 
the  lost  epic  Thehais,  one  of  the  most  famous  passages  was  a 
piece  of  didactic  poetry.  In  fine,  this  kind  of  poetry,  or  rather 
this  form  of  conveying  instruction,  did  not  originate  with 
Hesiod,  nor  was  it  peculiar  to  the  ^olian  Boeotians.  But 
1  One  of  these  has  survived. — C.  I.  G,  i.  la. 


80  fflSTORY  OF  GREEK  UTERATURB. 

nowhere  else  and  from  no  other  poet  did  it  receive  such  cultiva* 
tion.  The  conditions  in  Boeotia  were  more  favourable  than  else* 
where  to  the  development  of  the  seeds  of  didactic  poetry.  What 
were  the  conditions?  A  country  adapted  for  farming,  and  a 
population  more  inclined  to  the  realities  of  existence  than  to  the 
realms  of  fancy.  Hesiod  was  "  a  child  of  his  time  and  people." 
His  natural  bent  was  to  the  giving  of  practical  advice ;  and 
his  audience,  being  practical  men,  preferred  hints  on  farming  to 
"lies,"  even  though  they  were  "like  the  truth,"  about  Troy. 

Under  the  title  Works  and  Days  there  are  comprised  in  all 
probability  two  works.  There  is  the  Works  and  Days  proper, 
consisting  of  advice  about  farming  and  husbandry  generally,  and 
constituting  the  second  half  of  the  poem  as  it  now  stands. 
There  is  also  another  poem  addressed  to  Hesiod's  brother,  and 
containing  moral  advice,  which  makes  the  first  half  of  the  poem 
in  its  present  form.  These  two  poems  differ  in  character 
enough  to  make  it  probable  that  they  were  given  to  the  public 
under  different  conditions.  Now  it  is  possible  that  the  real 
Works  and  Days  was  first  given  to  the  public  at  some  "musical " 
contest  or  literary  competition.  But  it  is  not  probable  that 
Hesiod's  warm  reprobation  of  the  corrupt  and  unjust  kings  was 
meant  to  compete  for  a  prize.  It  would  have  great  success 
with  an  audience  of  his  neighbours  gathered  together  to  hear 
his  words  against  an  injustice  from  which  they  themselves  had 
suffered  or  might  suffer ;  and  we  may  conjecture  that  it  was  in 
this  way  the  poem  was  diffused,  much  as  the  lampoons  of 
Archilochus  in  later  times  were  recited  by  the  author  at  a  ban- 
quet, and  circulated  through  the  city  by  those  who  heard  them. 
Probably  this  was  also  the  way  in  which  the  real  Works  and 
Days  was  made  public.  A  single  recitation  in  a  public  festival 
would  give  the  hearers  no  opportunity  of  carrying  away  in 
their  memories  so  long  a  poem.  "VVe  must  suppose  that  Hesiod 
was  frequently  called  upon  to  recite  his  poem  in  social  gather- 
ings, and  that  thus  it  became  diff'used. 

We  have  now  to  ask  why  the  matter  of  the  Works  and 
Days,  which,  like  other  didactic  poetry,  is  essentially  prosaic, 
was  thrown  into  the  form  of  verse  ?  To  this  it  has  been  replied 
that  Hesiod  had  very  strong  feelings  about  the  injustice  of 
judges  and  the  evil  of  idleness ;  and  the  strength  of  his  feelings 
was  so  great,  that  his  soul  could  not  rest  until  he  had  given  the 
most  beautiful  and  imposing  expression  to  his  feelings  that  he 
could.  And  this  it  is  said  is  the  explanation  of  didactic  poetry 
in  general.  Poetry  in  itself  is  not  the  proper  vehicle  for  in- 
struction and  information  :  prose  is  the  proper  means.      But 


EPIC  POETRY  :    HESIOD  AND  HESIODIC  POETRY.  8 1 

the  attractive  and  enthralling  beauty  of  what  the  author  had  to 
say  appeared  to  him  so  great,  that  poetry  was  the  only  worthy 
expression  for  it ;  and  into  poetry  he  put  it.  Now  we  will  not 
insist  upon  the  fact  that  food  for  cattle  and  matters  of  manure 
cannot  have  this  overpowering  beauty.  The  fallacy  of  the  ex- 
planation is,  that  it  assumes  that  Hesiod  and  other  didactic 
poets  had  before  them  the  choice  whether  to  compose  in  verse 
or  prose.  But  in  the  seventh  century  B.C.  no  Greek  author  had 
any  such  choice.  The  very  idea  that  it  was  possible  to  com- 
pose prose  was  unknown  until  the  latter  part  of  the  sixth 
century,  and  then  it  was  in  Ionia  that  the  discovery — an 
important  one — was  made.  If  a  man  had  that  within  him 
which  he  felt  he  must  give  words  to — if  his  thoughts  on  the 
order  of  things,  or  his  knowledge  of  the  practical  matters  of 
life,  seemed  to  him  too  precious  to  die  within  his  own  breast, 
he  had  only  one  way  of  giving  them  extensive  publicity, 
only  one  way  of  ensuring  that  they  should  live  after  him,  and 
that  was  to  put  them  into  verse.  A  precept  is  useless  if  it  can- 
not be  remembered,  and  cannot  be  readily  learnt  by  one  person 
from  another.  Accordingly,  amongst  most  peoples,  rhyme, 
metre,  or  alliteration  is  used  as  an  aid  to  memory.  Ehyme 
and  metre  have  indeed  a  beauty  of  their  own,  which  doubt- 
less is  the  secret  of  their  original  cultivation.  But  they  have 
also  the  practical  recommendation  of  enabling  the  memory  to 
carry  a  larger  amount  of  facts  than  it  otherwise  could  retain  ; 
and  so  long  as  writing  is  unknown  to  or  little  used  by  a  people, 
verse  is  not  only  a  means  of  gratifying  man's  sense  of  beauty, 
but  also  bears  the  burdens  which  paper  or  parchment  are  sub- 
sequently made  to  carry. 

Even  when  prose  literature  has  come  into  existence,  and 
when  the  function  of  verse  has  been  specialised  down  to  the 
sole  purpose  of  adding  to  the  beauty  of  expression,  we  still 
find  that  there  survives,  especially  amongst  the  uneducated,  a 
large  amount  of  folk-lore  in  verse.  Amongst  this  folk-lore 
there  may  generally  be  found  rhymes  about  the  weather,  about 
the  proper  days  for  the  discharge  of  certam  domestic  duties, 
and  rough  and  ready  maxims  of  conduct.  Now  this  is  pre- 
cisely the  sort  of  teaching  found  in  Hesiod's,  Works  and  Days. 
The  "  works  "  are  farming  operations,  the  "  days  "  are  the  days 
of  the  month  on  which  it  is  lucky  to  do  or  avoid  certain  things. 
It  seems,  therefore,  reasonable  to  suppose  that  Hesiod  was  but 
following  a  custom,  which  already  existed  among  the  people,  of 
couching  useful  information  in  verse,  because  it  was  easier  to 
remember  than  it  would  have  been  if  put  into  prose.     It  is  truft 

p 


82  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

that  a  short  maxim  may  have  a  long  life,  even  in  prose,  if  it  la 
put  in  a  pithy  form,  which  by  its  point  or  its  ring  strikes  the 
imagination  and  impresses  itself  on  the  memory.  Such  maxima 
are  the  proverbs  of  all  peoples.  They  play  an  important  part 
in  the  education  of  a  nation,  and  constitute  the  principal  edu- 
cation of  many  illiterate  people.  But  although  brief  maxima 
may,  even  when  expressed  in  prose,  have  a  wide  and  long  popu- 
lar existence,  it  is  because  they  are  brief.  A  dozen  words  in 
prose  may  be  remembered  if  they  are  striking  enough,  but  a 
dozen  pages  of  prose  not.  Hesiod,  therefore,  who  wrote  a  long 
work,  had  a  very  obvious  reason  for  giving  it  the  form  of  verse. 
His  object  was  to  give  useful  information ;  and  however  valu- 
able his  precepts  were  in  themselves,  his  object  would  have 
been  defeated  if  they  were  not  extensively  circulated.  Now, 
if  his  sayings  were  to  spread  amongst  the  agricultural  popula- 
tion of  Bceotia,  and  be  handed  down  from  father  to  son,  it  was 
necessary  that  they  should  be  in  verse,  for  they  were  too  long 
to  be  remembered  or  repeated  otherwise  ;  for  whatever  the 
date  at  which  writing  came  into  use  in  Greece,  we  may  reason- 
ably suppose  that  the  tillers  of  the  soil  did  no  more  reading 
in  Greece  than  they  did  in  England  before  the  invention  of 
the  printing-press. 

It  is  from  the  Works  and  Days  and  the  introduction  to  the 
Theogony  that  we  learn  all  we  know  about  Hesiod's  life.  His 
father '  came  from  Cyme  in  .^olis  and  settled  in  Ascra,  at  the 
foot  of  Mount  Helicon,  in  Bceotia.  There,  as  far  as  we  know, 
Hesiod  spent  his  life.  After  his  father's  death  he  lost  his 
share  of  his  father's  property  in  a  lawsuit  brought  against  him 
by  his  brother  Perses,  who  obtained  a  verdict  by  bribing  the 
judges.  This,  however,  seems  not  to  have  prevented  Hesiod 
from  obtaining,  by  careful  farming,  a  livelihood  sufficient  to 
enable  him  to  give  assistance  to  his  brother  subsequently,  when 
Perses  was  in  need  of  aid.  Nor  did  the  work  which  he  had 
to  do  as  a  farmer  prevent  him  from  composing  didactic 
poetry.  The  Muses  of  Helicon  inspired  him  to  sing  in  the 
Theogo7iy  of  the  origin  of  the  world  and  the  history  of  the 
gods.  His  literary  fame  and  triumphs  were  not  limited  to  the 
audience  that  he  found  among  his  farmer  neighbours,  but  on 
one  occasion  he  competed  with  a  poem  at  the  funeral  of  King 

1  The  name  of  his  father  is  traditionally  given  as  Dies.    This  probably  is 
du«  to  a  misunderstanding  of  Works  and  Days,  399 — 

ipydSev  liipaij  Siov  yipot. 

Unleas  we  correct  the  reading  into  Aiov  yivoi. 


EPIC  poetry:  hesiod  and  hesiodic  poetry.        83 

Amphidamas  in  Chalcis,  and  carried  off  the  prize.  The  law- 
suit with  his  brother  was  the  occasion  of  Hesiod's  composing 
the  poem  which  now  forms  the  first  part  of  the  Works  and 
Dayg  ;  the  appeals  of  Perses  for  assistance  afforded  him  the 
opportunity  for  giving  the  advice  contained  in  the  real  Works 
and  Days.  Other  poems,  of  which  we  will  speak  shortly,  he 
composed  besides  these,  but  they  have  not  survived.  Tradition 
says  that  he  left  Ascra  and  died,  and  was  buried  in  Naupactus. 
There  seem  to  have  been  two  tombs,  one  in  Naupactus,  the 
other  in  Ascra,  claiming  to  contain  his  bones ;  and  this  circum- 
stance apparently  gave  rise  to  the  myth  commemorated  by 
Pindar,  that  he  lived  two  lives. 

Hesiod's  verses  are  not  in  themselves  beautiful,  nor  does  his 
subject,  even  when  it  of  itself  suggests  poetical  treatment,  exalt 
his  style  above  his  ordinary  prosaic  level.  He  lacks  imagina- 
tion. But  it  is  unfair  to  convert  this  into  a  reproach.  His 
object  was  to  give  sound  practical  advice,  and  this  he  does  in 
a  practical,  if  prosaic,  manner.  He  succeeds  in  what  he  aims 
at ;  and  it  argues  ignorance  of  the  conditions  under  which  he 
composed  to  imagine,  that  because  he  necessarily  composed  in 
verse,  he  therefore  necessarily  aimed  at  an  imaginative  render- 
ing of  ideas.  He  says  himself  his  aim  was  truth,  not  invention  ; 
and  verse  was  the  proper  vehicle  for  his  ideas,  not  because  they 
required  poetical  rendering,  but  because  it  was  an  aid  to  the 
memory.  To  judge  him  fairly,  and  to  understand  wherein  the 
merit  consisted  which  made  his  name  great  in  Greece,  we  must 
consider  what  he  said,  not  how  he  said  it.  He  spoke  bravely 
and  earnestly  for  the  worth  of  work  in  itself,  whether  it  brought 
wealth  or  not.  He  preached  the  faith  that  justice  was  better 
than  injustice,  both  for  men  and  cities.  He  took  the  side  of 
right  against  wrong.  Besides,  he  was  eminently  shrewd  and 
practical.  Trust  no  man,  he  says,  without  a  witness — advice 
which  the  Greeks  certainly  would  take  care  to  have  taught  to 
their  children.  His  morality  was  not  so  much  above  their 
level  as  to  prevent  their  being  influenced  by  it.  What  reward 
a  man  could  find  in  giving  to  those  who  did  not  give  to  him, 
neither  Hesiod  nor  his  countrymen  could  divine.  He  for- 
mulated and  they  accepted  the  precept,  Give  to  those  only  who 
give  to  you.  This  side  of  his  morality  lowers  him  in  our  eyes, 
but  helps  to  explain  his  reputation  in  Greece. 

The  merit  of  Hesiod  lies  in  his  matter,  not  in  the  form  with 
which  he  invested  it ;  and  it  is  illogical  to  disintegrate  his 
poems  because  of  their  deficiency  in  organisation  and  artistic 
unity.      Further,  to  plan  and  execute  a  work  in  which  the 


84  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

parts  are  duly  subordinated  one  to  another,  implies  not  only 
imagination  and  a  sense  of  beauty,  but  considerable  mental 
grasp  ;  and  in  this,  too,  Hesiod  was  lacking.  In  the  Works  and 
Days,  the  myth  of  Pandora  is  related  in  an  unintelligent 
and  unintelligible  manner.  In  the  Theogony,  which  is  pro- 
fessedly a  systematic  version  of  the  various  beliefs  about  the 
gods  and  the  origin  of  things  current  in  Greece,  it  is  obvious 
that  the  difficulty  there  is  in  understanding  many  parts  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  Hesiod  himself  did  not  understand  what  he  was 
retailing. 

Some  critics,  while  accepting  the  Works  and  Days  as  it 
stands,  have  declared  that  though  it  is  the  work  of  Hesiod,  the 
Theogony  is  not,  as  the  Chorizontes  or  Separatists  maintained 
that  the  Iliad  was,  but  the  Odyssey  was  not,  the  work  of 
Homer.  This  view,  in  the  case  of  Hesiod  as  of  Homer,  descends 
from  antiquity.  Pausanias,  who  flourished  about  a.d.  i6o, 
says  ^  that,  according  to  a  local  tradition  current  among  the 
Boeotians  near  Mount  Helicon,  the  only  work  of  Hesiod's  was 
the  Works  and  Days,  and  to  this  view  Pausanias  gives  his 
own  firm  adherence.  But  all  earlier  authorities  unanimously 
ascribe  the  Theogony  to  Hesiod.  The  Alexandrian  critics  never 
suspected  that  it  was  spurious.  Herodotus  expressly  says  that 
Hesiod  made  a  theogony.^  Heraclitus  refers  to  it.^  Acusilaus, 
who  flourished  about  B.C.  500,  probably  borrowed  from  it. 
Xenophanes  (b.c.  570)  expressly  refers  to  it  as  Hesiod's  Avork.* 
We  have  therefore  to  set  against  a  mere  tradition,  existing  in 
the  time  of  Pausanias,  about  something  that  happened  a  thou- 
sand years  before,  the  explicit  statements  of  authors  who  lived 
six  or  seven  hundred  years  nearer  to  Hesiod's  time.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that,  as  far  as  external  evidence  goes,  it  is  in 
favour  of  the  Theogony  being  the  work  of  Hesiod.  And  this 
must  decide  the  question  of  its  authorship. 

The  Theogony  not  only  relates,  as  its  name  implies,  the  birth 
of  the  gods,  but  is  also  a  cosmogony  describing  the  origin  of  the 
universe.  The  poem  is  not  the  invention  of  Hesiod  himself  ; 
it  is  his  connected  version  of  the  floating  beliefs  and  myths  of 
his  time,  in  which  he  has  incorporated,  probably,  verses,  and 

^  xi.  31,  4,  BoiUTuv  ol  irepl  rbv  'KXiKwva  oUodtTes  vapeiXij/j./iivT]  Sifj 
X^yova-iv,  (1)1  HfftoSos  dWo  woLTjaai  oiidiv,  rj  ra  ipya. 

*  ii-  S3- 

2  XXXV.  ed.  Bywater,  refers  to  Theog.  123  and  748.  Fr.  xvi.  only  provei 
that  Heraclitus  knew  Hesiod's  works,  not  that  he  knew  tlie  Theogony. 

*  Trdvra  Oeois  avidr]Kav  "OfiTjpos  6'  'llfflo56i  re,  "Offca  nap'  avdptljiroiair 
iveiSea  Kal  \pb-yo%  icrriv,  Ol'  irXdar  ((pdiy^ayro  Oewv  a0€fj.iaTia  Ipya,  KXdvTfif 
(MixnJftv  re  KoX  dXX-qXovs  diraTevdK 


EPIC  POETRY  :    HESIOD  AND  HESIODIC  POETRY.  8  5 

even  whole  passages,  of  traditional  religious  poems.  In  the 
beginning,  according  to  his  authorities,  was  Chaos.  Out  of  Chaos 
came  Earth,  and  Tartarus,  and  Love.  From  Chaos  also  sprung 
Erebos  and  Night.  From  Erebos  and  Night  came  Day  and 
.^ther.  From  Earth  was  born  the  Sky  and  the  Mountains. 
Then  the  union  of  Earth  and  Sky  produced  the  Ocean,  Kronos, 
the  Cyclops,  and  the  Titans.  The  Sun  and  Moon  were  born 
from  the  Titans.  The  Sky  (Uranus)  was  the  first  lord  of  the 
gods ;  but  he  was  killed  by  his  son,  Kronos,  and  from  his  body 
sprang  the  Erinnyes  and  Aphrodite.  Kronos  himself  was  de- 
posed by  his  son  Zeus.  The  history  of  the  dynasty  of  Zeus 
follows,  and  the  poem  ends  with  a  list  of  the  goddesses  who 
married  mortals. 

Like  the  Works  and  Days,  the  Theogomj,  being  a  didactic 
poem,  was  used  in  Greece  for  educational  purposes.  From  the 
orator  ^schines  we  learn  that  Greek  boys  were  made  to  learn 
the  former,  and  from  the  rhetorician  Libanius  that  even  in 
the  fourth  century  after  Christ  the  Theogony  was  still  taught.^ 
But  the  Tlieogony  was  not  only  used  as  a  manual  of  mythology 
in  schools ;  as  containing  the  oldest  speculations  of  the  race  on 
the  origin  of  the  universe  and  of  the  gods,  it  was  the  subject  of 
discussion  among  philosophers.  The  story  goes  that  Epicurus 
received  his  first  impulse  to  philosophy  from  the  Theogony ; 
and  certainly  the  Stoic  philosophers  Zeno,  Chrysippus,  and 
Diogenes  of  Babylon  wrote  treatises  on  it,  and  endeavoured  to 
interweave  it  with  their  physical  philosophy.  In  earlier  timea 
philosophers  treated  it  with  less  respect  and  more  judgment, 
Heraclitus  observed  that  it  showed  the  difference  between 
learning  and  understanding.^  The  criticism  is  a  sound  one. 
Hesiod  heaped  up  all  the  myths  that  he  was  acquainted  with  in 
the  Theogony,  and  his  mythological  learning  was  wide  ;  but  in 
many  cases  he  seems  not  to  have  understood  them  well  enough 
even  to  relate  them  intelligibly.  Another  philosopher,  Xeno- 
phanes,  criticised  the  work  on  moral  grounds  ;  every  action 
that  men  consider  immoral,  theft,  adultery,  and  deceit,  Hesiod 
attributed  to  the  gods.  This  criticism  also  is  true ;  but  the 
reproach  affects  Hesiod  but  little,  since  he  did  not  invent  these 
tales  ;  he  merely  recorded  them.  The  brutal  stories  found  in 
the  Theogony,  e.g.  those  in  which  Kronos  swallows  his  own 

*  ^schines  in  Ctes.  135,  p.  73,  quotes  a  verse,  and  says,  X^^w  5h  KayCi 
ra  liTT)'  5td  TOVTO  yap  ot/Mai  Tjna.s  Tra'idas  bvrai  ras  tCjv  ttoitjtCov  yvdi/Mas  iKjiaV' 
ddvew,  tv  S.i'5pes  8»Tej  airrois  yjiQip-eda.     Cf.  Libanius,  i.  502,  9,  iv.  874. 

*  voXv/j-adli}  vbov  oii  SiddoKeu  'Hfflodov  yap  dv  idloa^e  nal  Iliida.y6pT)i>, 
CT.X.    xvi.  ed.  B^  water. 


86  HTSTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

children  and  mutilates  his  father  Uranus,  are  descended  from 
times  when  the  Aryans  were  no  more  advanced  in  civilisation 
than  the  South  Sea  Islanders,  Such  stories  are  found  all  over 
the  world,  as  flint  arrow-heads  and  stone  implements  are  found, 
and  show  that  the  mind  of  primitive  man  was  everywhere  in- 
fluenced by  the  same  analogies  in  the  endeavour  to  solve  the 
problem  of  the  origin  of  things. 

"We  have  now  to  mention  the  other  works  ascribed  to  Hesiod. 
Of  these,  the  Shield  of  Hercules  alone  survives.  It  is  obviously 
inspired  by  the  description  of  the  shield  of  Achilles  in  Homer, 
and  the  diction  contains  reminiscences  of  Homeric  phraseology. 
As  literature,  it  possesses  no  great  merit.  The  narrative  is  life- 
less, the  description  of  the  shield  inartistic.  The  introduction 
now  prefixed  to  the  poem  does  not  belong  to  it,  but  to  the  EocB 
of  Hesiod.  It  is  said  that  Stesichorus,  the  lyric  poet  who  lived 
about  B.C.  600,  expressly  ascribed  the  Shield  to  Hesiod,  but  the 
critic  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium  (circa  b.c.  200)  declared  it 
spurious,  and  his  opinion  has  been  unanimously  accepted,  on 
internal  grounds,  by  modern  writers. 

Other  works,  now  lost,  such  as  the  Catalogue  of  Women,  th© 
Eoce,  ^gimios,  the  Teaching  of  Chiron,  the  Wedding  of  Keyx, 
the  Melampodia,  were  also  ascribed  to  Hesiod,  some  perhaps 
justly,  others  because  they  were  Hesiodic,  i.e.  didactic  or  genea- 
logical, or  like  him  in  style.  The  most  important  of  these 
works  is  the  Catalogue.  It  probably  formed  a  continuation  of 
the  Tlieogony,  as  it  contained  the  genealogy  of  heroes,  related 
in  much  the  same  way  as  the  genealogy  of  the  gods  is  related 
in  the  Tlieogony.  It  seems  to  have  consisted  of  three  books ; 
and  as  the  Eooe,  consisting  of  two  books  and  treating  of  the 
same  subject,  was  usually  united  with  it  in  a  work  of  five  books 
altogether,  it  has  sometimes  been  maintained  that  the  Catalogue 
and  the  Eoae  ^  are  but  different  names  for  the  same  work.  But 
the  fragments  of  them  seem  to  show  that  the  same  myths  were 
treated  in  a  different  way  in  the  two  works,  and  as  the  Cata- 
logue was  universally  recognised  in  antiquity  as  the  work  of 
Hesiod,  while  there  were  doubts  about  the  genuineness  of  the 

^  The  title  Eoor,  'Horat,  is  a  plural  of  the  phrase  ■^  oXt),  and  the  poem  got 
its  name  from  the  fact  that  the  history  of  each  heroine  began  with  the  words 
^  oLt).  For  instance,  the  fragment  of  the  Eooi  which  has  been  prefixed  to  the 
Shield  begins — 

fl  0171  wpoXiirovcra  S6/JL0Vt  Kal  irarplda  yaiav 

ijXvffev  is  Qrj^as  ....  ' KkKiJi-qirq. 
The  Eoce,  therefore,  must  have  begun  with  some  such  statement  as :  Neve* 
were  there  women  so  fair  as  those  of  antiquity—  or  such  as  Alcmene ;  and 
«yery  heroine  was  iutioduced  with  the  words  "or  such  as." 


EPIC  POETRY  :    HESIOD  AND  HESIODIC  POETRY.  87 

Eoce,  it  is  possible  that  not  only  were  they  different  works,  but 
by  different  authors.  The  references  to  Cyrene  in  the  Eooe  make 
it  probable  that  the  poem  was  composed  after  that  place  came 
into  the  hands  of  the  Greeks,  i.e.  about  ao.  620,  and  therefore 
some  time  after  Hesiod's  date. 

Another  genealogical  poem,  the  Naupadian  Epic,  was  also 
ascribed  by  some  to  Hesiod  ;  others  ^  ascribed  it  to  a  poet  of 
whom  we  know  nothing,  Carcinos  of  Naupactus ;  others  to  a 
Milesian.  We  have  no  means  of  deciding  whether  Carcinos 
was  the  author,  but  the  grounds  on  which  it  was  assigned  to 
Hesiod  only  suffice  to  show  that,  like  the  Eoce,  it  was  Hesiodic 
in  character.  That  is  to  say,  it  was  a  genealogical  poem  ;  it 
resembled  the  Catalogue  in  that  it  celebrated  the  heroines  of 
antiquity,^  and  it  resembled  the  Eooe  in  the  fact  that  the  history 
of  each  heroine  was  introduced  with  the  inartistic  formula  "or 
such  as,"  which  implies  that  the  poem  began  with  some  such 
phrase  as  "  Never  was  woman  so  fair,  or  such  as,"  Alcmene,  or 
whoever  the  heroine  was. 

'Genealogical  poems  took  especial  root  in  Greece,  as  epic 
proper  owes  its  cultivation  to  the  colonies  in  Asia  Minor. 
These  poems  being  of  a  semi-historical  character,  are  valuable 
for  the  history  of  Greek  literature,  as  showing  that  prose,  which 
is  the  proper  vehicle  for  history,  and  which  was,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  first  used  for  history,  was  only  brought  into  use  after  verse 
had  been  many  times  tried  for  the  purpose  of  recording  history. 
At  the  same  time  they  show  by  what  slow  degrees  history 
began  to  disengage  itself  from  myth.-  Amongst  the  authors  of 
these  semi-historical  genealogical  poems,  the  name  of  Chersias 
of  Orchomenus  has  come  down  to  us.  He  is  said  to  have  been 
a  contemporary  of  Periander  and  Chilon.  To  Eumelus  of 
Corinth,  who  was  said  to  have  composed  the  Return,  were  also 
ascribed  the  Corinthian  Epic,  the  Bougonia,  and  Europia,  which 
we  may  regard  as  semi-historical  poems.  Argos  also,  as  well  as 
Corinth,  produced  poetry  of  this  kind,  the  Phoronis  and  Daiiais, 
whose  authors  are  unknown.  In  Sparta,  Cinsethon,  a  contem- 
porary of  Eumelus,  who  lived  probably  about  B.C.  776,  produced 
a  genealogical  poem.  Athens  had  her  representative  in  Hege- 
sinus,  who  wrote  the  Atthis  ;  and  in  later  times  in  the  colonies 
Asios  of  Samos  wrote  a  genealogical  poem  amongst  others. 

The  JEgimios  and  the  Wedding  of  Keyx,  which  were  ascribed 
to  Hesiod,  were  narrative  in  character  and  were  short  epics. 
They  originated  among  the  Boeotians  and  Dorian  Locrians,  and 

1  Pausanias  says  Charon  of  Lampsacus. 

*  For  this  Pausanias,  who  had  seen  the  poem,  is  our  authority. 


88  mSTOKY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

betray  their  origin  by  the  fact  that  they,  like  the  Shield  of 
Herades,  took  their  subjects  from  the  myths  in  which  Heraclea 
figured.  Finally,  the  J'eacliing  of  Chiron  was  a  development 
of  th3  didactic  side  of  Hesiod's  poetry,  as  were  also  the  Great 
Works  and  the  Astronomy^  and,  in  later  times,  the  Astrologia 
of  Cleostratus  of  Tenedos. 


CHAPTEE  VIL 

OTHER   BPIO   POETS   AND    OTHER   WRITERS    OP    HEXAMETERS, 

Besides  Homer  and  the  poets  whose  works  were  incorporated 
in  after-times  into  the  Epic  Cycle,  we  find  that  there  were  other 
epic  poets,  whose  works  have  perished  entirely,  or  are  repre- 
sented by  insignificant  fragments  only.  With  the  doubtful 
exception  of  Peisander,  all  these  poets  belong  to  post-epic 
times ;  that  is  to  say,  they  devoted  themselves  to  epic  composi- 
tion at  a  time  when  genius  had  abandoned  epic  poetry  for  the 
cultivation  of  other  kinds  of  literature.  The  epic  age  is  the 
period  in  which  genius  carried  epic  poetry  to  its  greatest  height, 
and  in  which  epic  constituted  the  main  if  not  the  sole  literary 
food  of  the  nation.  Although  epic  poems  continued  to  be  pro- 
duced throughout  the  period  of  lyric  poetry  and  of  the  drama, 
even  until  the  rise  of  oratory,  we  may  regard  the  epic  age  as 
ended  and  the  lyric  period  inaugurated  when,  in  B.C.  700, 
genius  appeared  for  the  first  time  in  the  field  of  lyric  poetry  in 
the  person  of  Archilochus.  The  elements  of  lyric  had  existed 
long  before  this  among  the  people,  but  the  age  of  lyric  only 
began  with  Archilochus,  and  when  it  began  the  epic  age  may 
be  said  to  end. 

We  have  therefore  now  to  deal  with  authors  who  composed 
epics  at  a  time  when  popular  attention,  and  consequently  the 
encouragement  which  national  fame  can  give,  was  bestowed  on 
other  kinds  of  literature.  Some  epics  composed  under  these 
anfavourable  conditions  were  incorporated  in  the  Epic  Cycle, 
and  have  already  been  mentioned.  Among  the  epic  poets  who 
remain  to  be  mentioned,  the  most  distinguished  was  the  earliest, 
Peisander  of  Kamiros  in  Rhodes.  Some  authorities  regarded 
him  as  belonging  to  the  epic  age ;  others,  with  more  probability, 
assign  b.c.  650  as  his  date,  and  he  may  be  even  more  modern 
than  that.     H  j,  like  the  other  epic  authors  of  post-epic  tiine% 


EPIC  POETRY  :    OTHER  EPIC  POETS.  89 

finding  the  cycle  of  Trojan  myths  already  worked  out,  turned 
elsewhere  for  a  subject,  which  he  found  in  the  adventures  of 
Heracles.  The  subject  had  indeed  been  treated  of  before  in 
6hort  Hesiodic  poems,  such  as  the  Shield  of  Heracles  and  the 
Marriage  of  Keyx.  But  these  works,  though  epic  in  style,  had 
only  dealt  with  incidents  in  the  life  of  the  hero.  It  yet  re- 
maiixed  for  some  one  to  give  in  the  epic  style  a  systematic 
account  of  all  the  adventures  of  Heracles.  This  Peisander  did 
in  his  Heradeia.  The  epic  consisted  of  two  books,  and,  as  far 
as  we  can  judge,  seems  to  have  been  a  well- planned  work,  pos- 
sessing some  claims  to  artistic  unity  and  symmetry  of  detail, 
wherein  it  differed  from  the  loose  and  unpoetical  character  of 
the  genealogiv''al  poems  attributed  to  Hesiod.  Beyond  this  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  form  for  ourselves  any  independent  judg- 
ment as  to  the  literary  merit  of  Peisander.  It  is  to  be  noticed 
that,  as  we  should  expect,  we  do  not  find  in  classical  authors 
any  mention  of  Peisander.  Peisander  devoted  himself  to  epic 
poetry  at  a  time  when  no  wide  reputation  was  to  be  gained  from 
it,  and  the  audience  to  which  he  addressed  himself  was  probably 
the  narrow  one  of  his  own  circle  of  friends.  On  what  grounds 
the  Alexandrian  critics,  who  classed  him  along  with  Homer  and 
Hesiod  in  their  canon  of  epic  poets,  did  so  class  him,  we  do  not 
know ;  but  a  class  which  included  Hesiod  could  not  have  been 
constituted  simply  on  grounds  of  literary  merit. 

An  interesting  figure  among  these  later  epic  poets  is  that  of 
Panyasis,  the  uncle  of  Herodotus.  Panyasis,  the  son  of  Poly- 
archus  of  Halicarnassus,  lived  about  B.C.  500,  in  the  time  of 
the  Persian  wars.  He  was  not  merely  a  learned  archaeologist, 
a  patient  investigator,  and  a  man  of  letters,  but  he  was  a  poli- 
tician and  a  patriot,  and  died  in  the  cause  of  freedom.  His 
native  city  was  under  the  rule,  not  of  a  government  of  the 
citizens'  own  choice,  but  of  a  dynasty  of  tyrants  maintained 
in  their  power  by  the  arms  and  wealth  of  Persia.  The  move- 
ment of  the  Persian  war  atibrded  the  party  of  freedom  an  oppor- 
tunity to  strike  for  liberty.  Temporary  success  was  followed 
by  the  return  of  the  tyrants,  and  in  the  struggle  Panyasis  lost 
his  life.  Like  Peisander,  Panyasis  took  Heracles  for  the 
subject  of  his  epic,  and  wrote  a  Heradeia.  Peisander  had 
treated  the  subject  at  greater  length  than  had  his  predecessors, 
and  Panyasis  far  outstripped  Peisander.  The  Heradeia  of 
Peisander  consisted  of  two  books,  that  of  Panyasis  of  fourteen, 
and  they  numbered  nine  thousand  verses.  The  fragments  do 
not  allow  us  to  form  an  opinion  on  the  literary  worth  of  Pan- 
yasis' epic;  and  the  statement  made  by  Suidas  that  Le  waa 


90  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

ranked  next  to  Homer  is  a  testimonial  of  no  great  value,  sine* 
we  do  not  know  by  whom  he  was  ranked  next  to  Homer.  An- 
other statement  made  by  Suidas,  that  Panyasis  gave  a  fresh 
impulse  to  epic,  which  was  nearly  extinct,  confirms  what  we 
have  said  with  regard  to  Peisander,  that  the  epic  age  was  over. 
The  Heracleia  of  Panyasis  seems  to  have  owed  its  lengtli 
mainly  to  the  learning  with  whicli  it  was  crammed.  The  author 
was  indefatigable  in  collecting  local  legends ;  and  everything 
that  diligent  investigation  could  amass  of  this  kind,  Panyasis 
seems  to  have  incorporated  into  his  poem  on  Heracles.  His 
antiquarian  instincts,  however,  found  better  room  for  exercise 
in  his  lonica.  This  was  a  semi  historical  poem,  seven  thousand 
verses  long,  in  which  was  embodied  all  the  tradition,  myth,  and 
legend  which  Panyasis  could  collect  about  the  early  history 
of  the  Ionic  race.  Finally,  we  should  notice  that  Panyasis' 
services  to  literature  must  not  be  measured  by  these  poems 
alone ;  for  Herodotus  doubtless  owed  to  his  uncle  much  of  his 
education  and  of  his  impulse  to  literature. 

Antimachus  of  Coloplion  belonged  to  the  generation  before 
Plato.  He  seems  to  have  been  but  little  in  Athens,  to  have 
spent  most  of  his  life  in  Colophon,  and  to  have  died  at  an 
advanced  age.  Besides  an  elegiac  poem,  Lyde,  he  wrote  a  very 
long  epic,  a  Thehdis.  His  contemporaries  paid  no  more  atten- 
tion to  him  than  to  other  epic  poets  of  the  post-epic  age.  It 
was  only  when  criticism  had  declined  that  his  epic  was  dragged 
by  Hadrian  from  its  merited  obscurity,  and  ordered  by  the 
Emperor's  decree  thenceforth  to  take  the  place  of  Homer.  A 
greater  service  rendered  by  Antimachus  to  literature  was  his 
edition  of  Homer.  Other  epic  poets,  of  whom  we  know  scarcely 
anything  but  their  names,  but  who  lived  probably  in  post-epic 
times,  were  Zopyrus,  Diphilus,  Antimachus  of  Teos,  Phaedimus 
of  Bisanthe,  who  wrote  a  Heracleia  and  also  elegiac  poems, 
and  Diotimus. 

Choerilus  of  Samos,  a  contemporary  of  Herodotus,  deserves  sepa- 
rate mention,  though  he  has  shared  the  obscurity  of  Antimachus. 
Departing  from  the  established  custom  of  epic  poets,  Avhich  was 
to  take  the  subjects  of  their  poems  from  mythology,  Choerilus 
wrote  a  historical  epic.  The  period  he  chose  was  the  Persian 
war,  and  the  title  of  his  epic  was  Persica  or  Perseis.  The  idea 
was  doubtless  suggested  to  him  by  the  fact  that  Phrynichua 
and  .^schylus  had  found  a  subject  for  tragedy  in  the  same 
period.  But  Choerilus  seems  not  to  have  had  the  power  to 
handle  the  theme  properly.  He  was  somewhat  of  a  hack,  and 
devoted  himself  to  writing  complimentary  verses  to  distinguished 


EPIC  POETRY  :    OTHER  EPIC  POETS.  9  I 

men,  such  as  Lysander,  the  conqueror  of  Athens,  and  Arclielaus, 
king  of  Macedonia.  His  Persica  was  impartially  enough  de- 
voted to  the  praise  of  Athens. 

Equally  noteworthy  as  a  departure  from  the  ordinary  round 
of  epic  subjects  is  the  Arimaspeia  of  Aristeas.  The  poem  takes 
its  name  from  the  fabulous  people  of  the  one-eyed  Arimaspes. 
"Whereas  other  epic  poets,  and  the  Tragedians  as  well,  confined 
tlieraselves  to  mythology,  Aristeas  of  Proconnesus  in  the  Pro- 
pontis  seems  to  have  drawn  on  his  imagination  for  his  subject, 
and  to  have  had  a  great  taste  for  the  marvellous.  As  to  the 
date  of  this  poet,  some  conjectured  him  to  be  older  even  than 
Homer,  but  all  that  we  know  is  tliat  he  was  older  than  Hero- 
dotus, from  whom  (iv.  13-15)  what  we  know  of  Aristeas  is 
drawn.  Inasmuch  as  Aristeas  laid  the  scene  of  his  epic  among 
the  Hyperboreans,  he  may  be  conjectured  to  have  had  some 
points  in  common  with  the  mystic  school  of  poets  ;  for  the 
Hyperboreans  were  a  people  regarded  as  specially  beloved  by 
Apollo.  To  the  mystic  school  also  belonged  Abaris,  who  pro- 
fessed, or  was  said  in  later  times,  to  have  come  from  the  Hyper- 
boreans on  a  mission  from  Apollo.  He  brought  with  him  an 
arrow  as  a  sign  that  he  was  sent  by  Apollo,  according  to  Hero- 
dotus (iv.  36)  ;  but  the  visionaries  of  the  Neo-Platonic  school 
in  later  times  related  that  Abaris  rode  through  the  air  on  this 
arrow,  and  thus  traversed  the  world.  Oracles,  hymns  of  puri- 
fication, and  an  epic  were  ascribed  to  him,  but  we  have  no 
means  of  judging  whether  the  works  ascribed  to  him  were  really 
his.  About  the  M'orks  of  the  Cretan  Epimenides  we  are  equally 
ill-informed,  though  it  admits  of  no  doubt  that  he  was  a 
historical  personage.  He  was  summoned  by  the  Athenians  to 
purify  their  city  from  the  pollution  brought  upon  it  by  Cylon, 
about  B.C.  610  ;  and  according  to  Plato,  who,  however,  lived  two 
centuries  later,  he  possessed  a  profound  insight  into  spiritual 
things.  Tales  of  a  wonderful  character  were  told  about  him 
too.  He  was  brought  up  by  the  Nymphae  and  possessed  the 
power  of  projecting  his  soul  into  space. 

Special  mention  must  be  made  of  the  Orphic  poets.  "Uliether 
there  ever  was  such  a  person  as  Orpheus,  "  who  with  his  lute 
made  trees  Bow  themselves  as  he  did  please,"  is  a  point  on 
which,  in  the  total  absence  of  evidence,  we  are  reduced  to  con- 
jecture. On  the  one  hand,  the  stories  which  are  told  of  his  mar- 
vellous powers  of  music  and  of  his  descent  to  the  nether  world  to 
bring  back  his  wife,  Eurydice,  seem  to  class  him  among  legendary 
personages.  On  the  other  hand,  there  seem  to  have  existed 
religious  hymns  of  great  antiquity,  universally  regarded  as  tha 


92  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

work  of  Orpheus,  which  may  have  been  the  production  of  soma 
poet  older  even  than  Homer.  At  any  rate,  it  is  certain  that 
in  historic  times  asso«:;iations  of  men  calhng  themselves  "  fol- 
lowers of  Orpheus  "  were  devoted  to  the  worship  of  Dionysos- 
Zagreus.  Dionysos  in  this  aspect  was  a  different  god  from  the 
god  of  wine,  and  the  bacchanalia  of  the  followers  of  Orpheus 
very  different  from  other  bacchanalian  rites.  Dionysos-Zagreu3 
was  a  god  of  the  nether  world,  and  the  followers  of  Orpheus  led 
an  ascetic  life  in  search  of  purity  and  in  hope  of  future  blessed- 
ness. When  they  had  partaken  of  the  flesh  offered  as  a  sac- 
rifice at  their  initiation,  they  thenceforward  renounced  meat 
Like  Egyptian  priests,  they  wore  white  raiment. 

Religious  hymns  bearing  the  name  of  Orpheus  seem  to  have 
oeen  current  among  the  people  from  early  times  ;  but  an  Orphic 
literature  first  arose  about  the  time  of  the  Persian  wars.  Even 
before  then,  Orphic  views  had  made  themselves  felt  in  religious 
literature,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  Theogony  of  Pherecydes  of 
Syros,  fragments  of  which  still  survive.  But  at  the  beginning 
of  the  fifth  century  we  find  many  Orphic  poets,  Persinus  of 
Miletus,  Timocles  of  Syracuse,  Diognetus,  Brontinus,  and  Cer- 
cops ;  and  a  theogony  entirely  Orphic.  The  most  celebrated 
of  the  Orphic  poets  of  this  period  is  Onomacritus,  who  was 
employed  by  the  Pisistratidae  to  collect  and  arrange  oracles 
affecting  Athens,  and  was  convicted  by  the  poet  Lasos  of  inter- 
polating forgeries.  There  seems  little  reason  to  doubt  that  in 
this  age,  though  more  extensively  in  Neo- Platonic  times,  hymns 
and  poems  were  composed  which  were  not  perhaps  deliberate 
forgeries,  but  speedily  came  to  be  uncritically  received  as  the 
works  of  Orpheus,  or  as  possessing  a  much  greater  antiquity 
than  was  really  theirs. 

The  oracles  which  Onomacritus  was  employed  by  the  Pisi- 
stratidae to  collect  were  those  of  Musaeus.  Although  regarded 
as  the  pupil  of  Orpheus,  Musaeus  seems  to  have  written  poetry 
which  was  connected  with  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  and  his 
prophecies  related  exclusively  to  Attica.  Closely  connected 
with  Musaeus  was  Eumolpus.  He  was,  according  to  the  popular 
tradition,  descended  from  Musaeus.  It  does  not  seem  that  he 
composed  poetry  himself,  or,  if  he  did,  it  perished  early  ;  but  he 
preserved  and  transmitted  the  verses  of  Musaeus.  Another 
name  which  occurs  in  connection  with  that  of  Musaeus  is  Bacis. 
Some  of  his  prophecies  are  quoted  by  Herodotus  (viii.  20,  77, 
96,  ix.  43),  and  are  regarded  by  the  historian  as  a  complete 
refutation  of  the  sceptical  views  existing  in  his  time  with 
regard  to  prophecies.      Another  prophet  quoted  by  Herodotus 


EPIC  poetky:  othek  epic  poets.  93 

is  an  Athenian  named  Lysistratus.  All  these  prophecies,  as 
also  those  of  the  Delphian  and  other  oracles,  are  in  hexameter 
verse  ;  and  in  their  diction  they  show  the  influence  of  Homer, 
and  to  a  less  extent  of  Hesiod. 

To  complete  our  enumeration  of  the  less  important  writers 
of  hexameters,  we  ought  to  mention  the  anonymous  authors  of 
epitaphs.  When  the  pentameter  was  invented,  elegiac  couplets, 
consisting  of  a  hexameter  and  a  pentameter,  became  the  uni- 
versal metre  for  epitaphs.  But  before  the  invention  of  the 
pentameter,  hexameter  was  used.  An  example  is  preserved  in 
the  so-called  Homeric  Epigrams  (iii.),  which  professes  to  have 
been  inscribed  on  the  tomb  of  Midas.  There  are  also  found 
hexameter  epitaphs  amongst  the  oldest  stone  records  which  we 
possess.^ 

Finally,  this  is  the  proper  place  for  us  to  speak  of  the  philo- 
Bophers  who  wrote  in  hexameters,  Xenophanes,  Parmenidcs,  and 
Empedocles.  If  it  fell  within  the  scope  of  this  work  to  trace 
the  filiation  of  philosophic  systems,  we  should  properly  treat 
of  these  philosophers  in  connection  with  those  who  wrote  in 
prose,  since  the  form  in  which  they  expressed  themselves  would 
not  justify  us  in  separating  them.  But  we  are  concerned  with 
them  only  in  their  literary  aspect,  and  have  not  to  do  with 
their  philosophy.  For  the  history  of  literature,  the  importance 
of  Xenophanes,  Parmenides,  and  Empedocles  is  that  they  show 
how  difficult  a  thing  it  was  for  a  nation,  which  for  centuries 
had  composed  in  verse  alone,  to  learn  to  write  in  prose.  About 
the  same  time  that  Xenophanes  in  Elea  was  formulating  his 
philosophy  in  hexameters,  that  is,  about  B.c.  570,  Pherecydes, 
a  native  of  Scyros,  one  of  the  Cyclades,  and  a  pupil  of  the 
famous  Thales,  was  making  the  earliest  attempt  to  write  in 
prose.  Some  few  specimens  of  his  work  have  come  down  to 
us.  In  everything  but  metre  they  are  poetry,  not  prose  j  and 
whereas  in  poetry  an  author  could  compose  artistic  sentences  of 
some  complexity,  in  prose  at  this  time  he  could  only  ejaculate 
short  and  simple  expressions,  in  their  baldness  rather  resembling 
8  child's  attempt  at  writing  than  a  philosopher'.s.  A  little 
later  than  this,  about  B.c.  547,  another  philosopher,  Anaxi- 
mander  of  Miletus,  again  made  an  effort  to  write  prose,  with 
more  clearness  but  scarcely  less  awkwardness  than  his  pre- 
decessor. Half  a  century  later,  although  the  philosophers 
Anaximenes  and  Heraclitus  had  carried  on  the  work  of  estab- 
lishing prose,  and .  the  logographers  Cadmus,  Hecataeus,  and 
Acusilaus,  the  predecessors  of  the  historians,  had  written 
1  Rohl,  /.  Ant.,  37,  62,  78,  340,  342,  343,  407,  531. 


94  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

geographical,  genealogical,  and  semi -historical  works  in  prose, 
we  find  that  Parmenides  preferred  poetry.  Prose  in  the  handa 
of  Heraclitus  was  even  less  fitted  for  an  intelligible  exposition 
of  philosophy  than  was  poetry.  Even  as  late  as  B.C.  444,  the 
year  in  which  Thurii  was  founded,  a  time  when  Herodotus  had 
already  composed  and  recited  much  of  his  history,  the  first 
great  work  in  prose,  Empedocles  still  wrote  in  verse. 

This  last  fact  is  instructive,  because  it  directs  our  attention 
to  the  circumstance  that,  besides  the  difficulty  of  writing  prose, 
there  were  difficulties  in  the  way  of  reading  prose.  It  is 
sometimes,  if  not  generally,  said  that  prose,  or  at  least  a  prose 
literature,  cannot  be  developed  unless  there  exists  a  reading 
public,  and  the  existence  of  a  reading  public  depends  upon  the 
development  of  the  means  of  multiplying  and  diffusing  copies 
of  a  manuscript.  But  in  the  works  of  the  Orators  we  have  a 
prose  literature  which  M'as  not  designed  for  a  reading  public. 
Nay,  more  ;  the  development  of  prose  as  an  artistic  expres- 
sion of  thought,  possessing  a  beauty  and  a  rhythm  of  its  own, 
distinct  from  but  as  marked  as  those  of  poetry,  is  the  work  of 
the  Orators,  whose  object  was  to  produce,  not  a  written  litera- 
ture, but  periods  addressed  to  the  ear  of  their  audience.  For 
this  purpose,  all  that  is  necessary  is  that  the  writing  should  be 
easy  enough  for  the  author  to  put  down  his  thoughts,  without 
excessive  and  distracting  labour.  Now,  in  B.C.  444  the  art  of 
writing  was  far  enough  developed  for  this,  as  the  existence 
of  the  history  of  Herodotus  shows ;  and  even  in  the  time  of 
Xenophanes,  b.c.  570,  this  may  have  been  the  case  ;  for  writing 
had  then  been  known  in  Greece  for  a  hundred  and  thirty  years. 

If,  then,  Empedocles,  as  late  as  B.C.  444,  preferred  to  use 
poetry,  we  may  reasonably  conjecture  that  one  reason  at  least 
for  his  preference  was  that  the  Greek  public  listened  more 
readily  to  poetry,  to  which  it  was  accustomed,  than  to  inartistic 
prose.  It  was  only  about  this  time  that  Greek  audiences  were 
learning  to  listen  to  prose,  whether  the  unaffected  prose  of 
Herodotus,  or  the  artificial  and  florid  rhetoric  of  Gorgias. 
When  we  go  back  more  than  a  century  to  the  time  of  Xeno- 
phanes, the  case  is  still  clearer.  The  author  who  Avrote  in 
prose  might  indeed  find  a  public  in  the  private  audience  of 
pupils  or  friends  whom  he  collected  together  to  listen  to  his 
writings ;  but  the  author  who  aimed  at  a  wider  publicity, 
and  wished  to  gain  the  ear  of  the  assembled  population  of  the 
city,  could  only  succeed  in  his  purpose  if  he  wrote  in  verse, 
and  declaimed  his  verses  at  some  public  festival,  the  object 
of  whicli   was  to  afford  an  opportunity  for  the  production  of 


EPIC  poetry:  other  epic  poets.  95 

poetical  compositions.  The  former  method  was  that  adopted 
by  the  philosophers  who  wrote  in  prose  ;  the  latter  that  in 
which  Xenophanes  published  his  works.i 

But  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  the  connection  between 
philosophy  and  poetry  was  accidental,  or  merely  a  matter  of 
form,  due  solely  and  wholly  to  the  difficulty  of  writing  and 
diffusing  prose.  There  is  also  an  internal  bond,  and  a  reason 
in  the  nature  of  the  two  things  for  their  connection.  A  subject 
of  philosophy  may  be  treated  of  by  poetry,  and  philosophy  may 
deal  with  its  own  subjects  poetically  ;  but  it  is  only  in  early 
times  that  the  connection  between  them  is  maintained.  With 
the  development  of  knowledge  philosophy  breaks  away  from 
poetry,  and  each  is  specialised  to  its  proper  work  and  methods. 
This  process  of  specialisation  is  not  peculiar  to  poetry  and 
philosophy,  but  is  the  law  of  the  development  of  knowledge 
in  all  its  branches.  In  the  earliest  stages  of  a  nation's  intel- 
lectual history,  not  only  philosophy,  but  all  the  nation's 
knowledge  is  comprised  in  poetry.  The  works  of  Hesiod, 
for  instance,  are  an  encyclopaedia  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Greeks  of  his  time.  His  Theogony  contains  not  only  the 
nation's  theology,  but  its  earliest  speculations  on  physical 
philosophy  and  the  origin  of  the  universe.  The  Catalogue 
of  Women  and  his  genealogical  works  were  the  only  history 
recorded,  and  led  the  way  to  the  genealogies  of  the  logo- 
graphers,  who  paved  the  way  for  history.  In  the  Works  and 
Days  we  have  not  only  a  manual  of  practical  knowledge,  but 
a  treatise  on  moral  philosophy  in  embryo.  But  by  degrees  the 
various  branches  of  knowledge  comprised  in  the  poetry  of 
Hesiod  began  to  break  away  from  poetry  and  poetical  treat- 
ment, and  to  gain  a  separate  existence,  an  appropriate  mode  of 
expression  and  methods  of  their  own.  The  genealogical  poems 
were  followed  by  the  prose  genealogies  of  the  logographers, 
which  in  their  turn  were  displaced  by  the  history  of  Herodotus. 
History,  again,  when  it  had  finally  split  off  from  poetry,  was 
found  to  contain  within  it  another  department  of  knowledge, 
geography,  which  eventually,  with  the  increase  of  knowledge, 
was  developed  out  of  history,  as  history  had  been  evolved  out 
of  poetry ;  and  in  the  present  day,  physical  geography  and 
political  geography  are  each  receiving  a  special  evolution. 

A  similar  process  of  specialisation  took  place  in  philosophy. 
For  long,  theology  and  philosophy  were  inseparable :  from 
philosophy  proper,  physical  philosophy  had  to  be  detached; 
and  then  moral  philosophy  had  to  win  an  existence  of  its  own, 

*  Piog.  La5rt,  ix.  i8,  avrbi  e^pa\p(^'5ei  t4  iairroO. 


g6  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

independent  of  the  philosophy  which  speculates  on  first  prilii 
ciples  and  the  nature  of  things.  But  it  was  only  gradually  that 
philosophy  escaped  from  poetry,  and  we  have  here  only  to  do 
with  its  first  unsuccessful  attempts.  Although,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  origiu  of  things  is  a  subject  which  may  be  dealt  with 
by  poetry,  and  was  dealt  with  in  the  various  theogonies,  the  me- 
thods by  which  a  solution  of  the  problem  may  be  attempted  are 
difi"erent,  and  are  not  all  equally  capable  of  poetic  expression  or 
consistent  with  a  poet's  manner  of  thought.  The  method  may 
be  scientific,  that  is,  may  consist  in  the  observation  of  facts — 
experiment  is  a  later  discovery,  unknown  to  the  Greeks — in 
recording  them,  drawing  inductions  from  them,  and  so  even- 
tually reaching  the  end  in  view.  But  this  is  an  essentially 
prosaic  process ;  and  the  Ionic  philosophers  who  employed  it 
were  naturally,  we  may  almost  say  necessarily,  driven  to  attempt 
to  write  in  prose.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  philosophers 
who  declared  that  the  senses,  our  only  means  of  observing  facts, 
are  wholly  untrustworthy.  They  are  all  subject  to  illusions, 
and  it  is  only  by  exercising  our  reason  that  we  can  detect  the 
illusion  and  ascertain  the  truth.  Instead,  therefore,  of  trusting 
to  the  senses,  which  deceive  us,  we  must  rely  solely  upon 
reason,  and  excogitate  the  truth  out  of  the  mind.  Now  this 
method  of  reaching  conclusions  is  not  inconsistent  with  the 
poet's  way  of  viewing  things.  He  too  draws  upon  his  own 
internal  stores,  and  creates  out  of  his  own  genius  what  did  not 
exist  before.  And  it  was  Xenophanes,  by  nature  a  poet  and 
the  author  of  lyric  poetry  of  considerable  merit,  and  his  follower 
Parmenides,  also  a  poet,  who  invented  this  method  and  founded 
the  Eleatic  school  of  philosophy.  It  was  therefore  the  method 
employed  in  philosophy  which  largely  determined  whether  it 
should  detach  itself  from  poetry,  as  in  the  case  of  Ionic  philo- 
sophy, or  remain  in  the  pleasing  fetters  of  verse,  as  in  the  case 
of  Xenophanes,  Parmenides,  and  Empedocles. 

Xenophanes  was  born  in  Colophon,  which  was  situated  on 
the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  not  far  from  Ephesus.  He  lived 
certainly  to  the  age  of  ninety-one,  for  Diogenes  Laertius  (ix.  19) 
quotes  some  verses  in  which  Xenophanes  says  that  since  the 
time  when  he  was  twenty-five  years  of  age  he  had  spent  sixty- 
seven  years  in  mental  activity.  At  some  point  in  this  long 
lifi^  he  left  his  native  city  and  settled  down  in  Elea,  Thia 
town,  the  modern  Castellaiuare,  situated  on  the  west  coast  of 
South  Italy,  a  little  north  of  Point  Palinurum  in  Lucania,  was 
a  colony  founded  by  the  Phocians  in  B.c  536.  Xenophanes 
composed  an  epic  poem  on  the  foundation  of  the  city,  and  it 


EPIC  POETRY  :    OTHER  EPIC  POETS.  9/ 

has  been  suggested  that  he  himself  took  part  in  the  first  colo- 
nisation of  ihe  city.  In  any  case,  it  seems  probable  that  he 
was  fairly  advanced  in  years  at  the  time  of  the  foundation  of 
Elea,  for  he  lived  before  the  time  of  Heraclitus,  whose  date  is 
about  B.C.  500. 

In  addition  to  the  epic  poem  in  two  thousand  verses  already 
mentioned,  which  he  is  said  to  have  composed  on  the  subject 
of  the  foundation  of  Elea,  but  from  which  no  quotations  are 
made  in  Greek  literature,  we  have  quotations  from  lyric  poems 
— not  exclusively  didactic  or  moralising  in  tone,  but  festive — • 
and  a  doubtful  iambic.  The  Parodies  from  which  Athenaeus 
(ii.  54B)  professes  to  quote  half-a-dozen  lines,  did  not  belong  to 
the  branch  of  literature  invented,  according  to  Aristotle,  by 
Hegemon,  a  contemporary  of  Epicharmus,  for  Hegemon  lived 
after  Xenophanes.  But,  as  the  verses  themselves  show,  they 
were  sarcastic  in  tone,  and  probably  Athenaeus  had  no  other 
reason  for  calling  them  "Parodies."  The  same  explanation 
would  suffice  to  account  for  the  fact  that  SilU,  a  species  of 
satiric  poetry,  were  ascribed  to  Xenophanes.  He  could  not 
have  written  SilU,  for  this  kind  of  literature  was  only  invented 
centuries  after  his  date  by  Timon  the  Phliasian,  surnamed  the 
Sillographer.  Eustathius,  the  commentator  of  Homer,  who 
lived  about  a.d.  1160,  not  only,  following  Strabo,  ascribes 
SilU  to  Xenophanes,  but  even  traces  their  origin  back  to  the 
Iliad  (ii.  212),  thus  showing  that  the  only  real  ground  for 
ascribing  them  to  Xenophanes  was  the  existence  of  satiric 
passages  in  his  poetry.  The  error  seems  to  have  had  additional 
life  given  to  it  by  the  fact  that  Timon  the  Sillographer  in  one 
of  his  SilU  introduced  Xenophanes  making  jest  of  Homer  and 
other  poets. 

Finally,  the  philosophy  of  Xenophanes  was  couched  in  hexa- 
meters. A  few  verses  are  quoted  by  Greek  authors  of  various 
dates,  which,  however,  would  not  have  sufficed  to  give  us  much 
idea  of  his  philosophy,  did  we  not  possess  a  partial  resuvie  in 
prose  drawn  from  Theophrastus,  the  pupil  of  Aristotle,  by  Sim- 
plicius ;  and  another,  said,  though  it  is  doubtful,  to  be  the 
work  of  Aristotle.  If  Xenophanes  ever  committed  his  works 
to  writing,  they  must  have  perished  early;  for  not  only  does 
Simplicius,  the  commentator  of  Aristotle,  say  that  he  could  not 
obtain  his  works,  but  other  authors  who  cite  verses  by  Xeno- 
phanes were  evidently  quoting  at  second-hand.  Earlier  autho- 
rities, such  as  Theophrastus,  Empedocles,  and  Heraclitus,  from 
whom  later  writers,  like  Athenaeus,  Diogenes  Laertius,  Sextus 
Empiricus,  and  others,  derived  their  knowledge  of  Xenophanes, 

Q 


98  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

give  the  sense  more  frequently  than  the  actual  words  of  theii 
author,  although  his  works  were  probably  known,  if  not  in 
writiQg,  by  oral  tradition,  to  at  least  Heraclitus,  who  lived  but 
little  later.  The  title  which  late  authorities  give  to  Xeno- 
phanes'  philosophical  work  is  On  Nature  ;  ^  but  this  is  probably 
unwarranted.  It  is  a  title  which  fits  and  belongs  to  works  of 
the  Ionic  philosophers  who  wrote  on  physics  and  science,  but 
is  unsuitable  to  the  metaphysics  of  Xenophanes,  and  is  based  on 
no  good  authority. 

Xenophanes  is  a  most  interesting  figure  among  the  philo- 
sophers and  authors  of  his  time,  and  we  cannot  but  regret  that 
we  possess  so  little  of  his  work.  He  was  a  man  of  great  origi- 
nality, and  the  power  of  his  mind  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the 
method  which  he  applied  to  philosophy  continued  to  be  exer- 
cised and  developed  through  many  generations  of  modern  as 
well  as  of  ancient  philosophers.  Although  he  founded  a  school 
of  philosophy,  the  Eleatic,  he  was  a  man  of  many  interests, 
and  his  literary  activity,  as  we  have  seen,  was  by  no  means 
limited  to  a  single  branch.  He  possessed  powers  of  penetration 
which  were  not  confined  to  the  service  of  philosophy,  but  were 
exercised  on  matters  of  more  obvious  interest.  Although  he 
himself  composed  drinking-songs,  and  was  not  insensible  to  the 
pleasures  which,  in  moderation,  enhance  the  charm  of  life,  he 
noted  and  protested  against  the  growing  luxury  that  proved  the 
intellectual  ruin  of  the  Ionic  cities,  which  had  done  so  much 
for  the  literature  and  science  of  Greece.  Nor  did  the  evils  of 
excessive  athleticism  escape  his  observation  and  reproof.  If 
a  man,  he  says,  wins  a  foot-race  or  a  boxing-match,  or  even  a 
liorse-race,  in  the  national  games,  he  is  the  object  of  his  fellow- 
citizens'  admiration  ;  he  has  an  official  front-seat  awarded  to  him 
at  all  entertainments,  is  maintained  at  the  public  expense,  and 
is  presented  with  a  gift  to  be  an  heirloom  for  ever.  Yet  how 
much  less  worthy  is  the  athlete  than  the  philosopher  !  Wherein 
dcies  the  winning  of  a  race  conduce  to  the  good  government  of  a 
city  or  to  the  interests  of  the  people  ?  Men's  minds  are  much 
astray  when  they  set  philosophy  below  fleetness  of  foot.  The 
justice  of  Xenophanes'  protest  is  confirmed  by  its  repetition  a 
century  or  more  later  by  tragedians  and  orators.  If  Xenophanes 
thus  sets  himself  against  the  current  of  public  opinion  on 
matters  athletic,  he  displayed  equal  courage  in  his  criticisms 
on  Hesiod  and  Homer.  Everything,  he  said,  which  men  con- 
sider it  disgraceful  to  do,  these  poets  represent  the  gods  as 
doing.  Here  again  Xenojihanes  was  led  by  no  mere  striving 
^  De  Natura,  irepl  <j>v<rewi. 


EPIC  POETRY  :    OTHER  EPIC  POETS.  99 

after  cheap  originality  of  criticism  and  self-supposed  superiority 
to  the  common  view.  Philosophy  for  generations,  and  through 
its  most  distinguished  exponents,  echoed  the  protests  which  he 
first  made  in  the  name  of  morality.  Against  the  anthropo- 
morphism of  his  age  and  nation  Xenophanes  brought  to  bear 
all  the  varied  resources  of  his  many-sided  ability.  His  philo- 
sophy was  designed  not  for  a  chosen  few,  but  for  the  general 
ear,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  delivered  it  in  poetry  ;  and 
if,  in  the  summaries  of  it  which  Theophrastus  and  others  have 
handed  down  to  us,  the  reasoning  seems  close  and  subtle,  the 
quotations  which  they  make  in  the  words  of  Xenophanes  him- 
self show  that  he  expressed  pointed  arguments  in  a  manner  that 
any  of  his  audience  could  understand.  Men  think,  he  says  with 
profound  contempt,  that  the  gods  have  birth,  speak,  have  bodies, 
and  wear  clothes  like  themselves  !  Why,  if  horses  or  cowg 
could  draw  like  men,  they  would  represent  the  gods  as  cows 
or  horses  !  The  theory  of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  which 
Pythagoras  and  his  followers  believed  in,  met  with  as  little 
mercy  from  Xenophanes  as  did  the  anthropomorphism  of  the 
people  and  the  poets.  According  to  the  somewhat  malicious 
invention  of  Xenophanes,  Pythagoras  checked  a  man  who  was 
beating  a  dog  with  the  words,  "  Stay  your  hand  !  in  the  dog  is 
the  soul  of  one  dear  to  me ;  I  recognise  his  voice." 

If  Xenophanes  was  the  founder  and  the  first  of  the  Eleatic 
school,  Parmeuides  was  the  greatest  of  its  philosophers.  Par- 
menides,  born  at  Elea,  belonged  to  a  wealthy  and  distinguished 
family.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Xenophanes,  and  he  also  studied 
under  Aminias  and  Diochaetes,  Pythagorean  philosophers.  But 
from  the  latter,  in  accordance  with  the  system  of  Pythagorean- 
ism,  he  seems  to  have  gained  rather  stimulation  to  the  pursuit 
of  philosophy  than  any  body  of  definite  doctrine.  Later  in  life, 
he  in  his  turn  handed  on  the  philosophy  he  had  elaborated  to 
his  pupils  Zeno  and  Melissus.  Although  a  native  of  Elea,  he 
seems  to  have  been  in  communication  with,  or  rather  to  have 
met  most  of  the  philosophers  of  his  time,  whether  they  belonged, 
like  Empedocles,  to  Sicily,  or,  like  Heraclitus,  to  so  distant  a 
place  as  Ephesus.  The  wealth  of  Parmenides  doubtless  afforded 
him  the  means  to  travel  where  he  would ;  and  we  fortunately 
have  in  Plato  the  record  of  the  fact  that  he  visited  Athens 
and  there  met  Socrates,  then  a  young  man.  Parmenides  came, 
according  to  Plato,  for  the  celebration  of  the  great  Athenian 
festival,  the  Panathenaea,  at  a  time  when  he  was  of  mature 
.,  years  and  had  already  achieved  a  reputation.  This  visit  is  of 
interest  for  two  reasons :  it  gives  us  the  date  of  Parmenides, 


lOO  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

and  it  shows  how  philosophy  was  diffusal  in  Greece.  As  fo» 
the  date,  Socrates  was  horn  b.c.  468,  and  if  we  suppose  that  at 
the  time  of  the  meeting  Socrates  was  sixteen  years  of  age — and 
we  can  hardly  suppose  that  he  was  younger — Parmenides  visited 
Athens  in  b.c.  452  ;  and  he  was  between  sixty  and  seventy 
years  of  age  at  the  time.  During  the  visit  he  met  many  Athe- 
nians, with  whom  he  discussed  points  of  philosophy.  This 
method  of  diffusing  his  views  was  specially  suited  to  Parme- 
nides, because  the  development  of  an  argument  by  means  of 
questioning  the  pupil  or  auditor — the  dialectic  method — was  a 
characteristic  of  the  school  to  which  he  belonged.  By  hiVn, 
probably,  for  the  first  time  the  young  Socrates  heard  the  method 
employed,  which  he  was  subsequently  to  develop  to  its  full  per- 
fection. But  although  Parmenides  travelled  far,  and  learned, 
discussed,  taught,  and  wrote  on  philosophy,  he  neither  neglected 
his  duties  as  a  citizen  nor  performed  them  perfunctorily.  Hc« 
proposed  laws  which  were  adopted  and  perpetuated ;  and  hia 
public  Hfe  redounded  as  much  to  his  reputation  as  his  philo- 
sophy. In  his  writings  he  declares  that  the  study  of  philosophy 
and  the  successful  pursuit  of  truth  demand  purity  and  piety  in 
the  student ;  and  his  life  confirmed  what  his  theory  taught. 

We  possess  fragments  of  Parmenides'  poetry  of  considerable 
length.  His  sole  work  seems  to  have  been  a  poem,  the  title  of 
which,  On  Nature,  as  it  goes  back  to  Theophrastus,  may  be 
genuine,  though,  if  it  is,  the  word  "  nature "  must  be  used  in 
an  extended  sense,  for  Parmenides  was  rather  a  metaphysician 
than  a  man  of  science.  The  contrast  between  reason  and  sense, 
and  the  superiority  of  the  former,  are  the  points  implied  in  the 
philosophy  of  Xenophanes,  which  Parmenides  developed  and 
made  into  the  foundation  of  his  philosophy.  The  senses  are 
subject  to  illusion,  and  are  inferior  to  the  reason.  The  latter 
alone  can  apprehend  truth,  the  former  can  only  lead  to  con- 
jecture. In  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  we  have  to  learn  to 
distinguish  between  reality  and  appearances ;  and  whereas  all 
that  we  know  by  means  of  the  senses  is  the  appearances  of 
things,  it  is  by  reason  that  we  have  to  discover  what  they  really 
are.  Reality  is  truth,  and  truth  is  reason ;  therefore  reason  is 
the  only  reality.  The  evidence  of  the  senses  does  not  go  beyond 
mere  appearances  and  conjecture.  Thought  and  existence  are 
the  same.  On  this  distinction  between  truth,  reason,  and 
reality,  on  the  one  hand,  and  conjecture,  sense,  and  appearance, 
on  the  other,  is  based  the  division  of  Parmenides'  poem  into 
the  two  parts  On  Truth  and  On  Conjecture.  They  have  beeu 
regarded,  but  on  insufficient  grounds,  as  two  distinct  works. 


EPIC  poetry:  other  epic  poets.  10 1 

It  is  probable  that  Parmenides  did  not  formally  distinguish 
them. 

The  mystic  or  allegorical  character  of  Parmenides'  writing  in 
the  part  of  his  poem  which  dealt  with  Conjecture  may  be  illus- 
trated by  the  interesting  introduction  to  the  poem,  which  u 
conceived  in  the  same  strain.  He  represents  himself  as  con- 
veyed by  steeds,  as  far  as  thought  can  reach,  along  the  famous 
road  by  which  is  reached  the  goddess  who  initiates  the  learned 
into  all  secrets.  The  way  to  light  was  shown  him  by  the 
l^ymphs  of  the  Sun,  who  led  him  to  the  gates  where  are  the 
ways  of  darkness  and  light.  There  they  besought  admittance 
for  him  from  the  guardian  of  the  gate  of  light,  Justice,  who 
bade  him  welcome,  if  it  was  that  piety  had  brought  him  on  this 
road  so  remote  from  those  the  vulgar  frequent.  She  then  warns 
him  of  the  arduous  task  there  is  before  him,  to  acquire  the  sum 
of  kuowledge  and  to  distinguish  truth  from  the  conjecture  of 
the  vulgar  :  and  the  poem  begins. 

The  steeds  which  conveyed  Parmenides  aloft  are  the  lofty 
impulses  of  the  philosophic  mind.  The  goddess  to  whom  they 
conveyed  him  is  Heavenly  Truth,  and  the  road  which  leads  to 
her  is  philosophy.  The  two  ways  of  light  and  darkness  are  the 
two  kinds  of  knowledge,  truth  and  conjecture.  The  nymphs 
are  Nymphs  of  the  Sun  because  truth  is  light ;  and  the  guardian 
of  the  gate  is  Justice  because  only  the  just  and  pious  can 
pursue  philosophy  and  attain  truth.  The  allegory  is  poetical, 
and  testifies  to  the  exalted  conception  Parmenides  possessed  of 
the  position  of  philosophy  and  the  attributes  necessary  in  the 
philosopher.  It  helps  us  further  to  understand  why  Parmenides 
wrote  in  poetry,  in  two  ways  :  first,  it  shows  his  poetic  tenden- 
cies ;  next,  it  was  quite  beyond  the  capacities  of  prose,  as  it 
existed  in  his  time,  to  bear  the  burden  of  bodying  forth  so  deep 
an  allegory.  The  prose  of  Plato  could  and  did  do  greater  work 
than  this,  but  Plato  was  not  born  for  a  generation  after  Par- 
menides had  made  his  reputation.  We  are  fortunate  in  possess- 
ing so  long  a  fragment  of  the  Eleatic  philosopher's  work,  and 
we  probably  have  to  thank  Plato  for  it  indirectly.  Parmenides' 
visit  to  Athens  created  great  interest  there  in  his  philosophy. 
It  made  a  great  impression  on  Socrates,  and  through  him  on 
Plato,  who  has  added  lustre,  by  his  dialogue  entitled  Parmen- 
ides, to  the  name.  Plato  himself  studied  Parmenides'  writings, 
as  did  Plato's  pupil  Aristotle  and  his  pupil  Theophrastus ;  and 
even  as  late  as  the  fifth  century  after  Christ  a  copy  of  his  works 
seems  to  have  existed  in  the  possession  of  Proclus,  the  Neo 
Platonic  philosopher. 


f  02  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Empedocles  is  a  remarkable  figure  in  the  history  of  Greek 
literature,  and  a  number  of  remarkable  stories  have  collected 
round  his  name.  Perhaps  the  most  widely  known  is  the  fable 
alluded  to  by  Horace,  according  to  which  Empedocles  terminated 
an  extraordinary  career  by  leaping  into  the  crater  of  ^tna,  in 
order  that  he  might  seem  to  have  vanished  like  a  god,  as  he 
pretended  to  be,  and  was  only  betrayed  by  the  fact  that  an 
eruption  shortly  afterwards  ejected  one  of  his  sandals.  The  story 
has  as  little  truth  in  it  as  has  the  orthodox  explanation,  which  is 
to  the  effect  that  Empedocles  accidentally  fell  into  the  crater  while 
studying  volcanic  phenomena.  In  the  time,  and  for  centuries 
after  the  time,  of  Empedocles,  the  very  existence  of  a  crater 
seems  to  have  been  unknown,  from  the  simple  fact  that  no  one 
ventured  to  explore  the  volcano.  The  fable  is  a  caricature,  and 
independent  of  the  testimony  which  it  bears  to  the  wit  of  the 
Sicilians  M'ho  invented  it,  it  is  valuable  because,  being  a  good 
caricature,  it  departs  but  little  from  the  real  features  of  the 
character  which  it  derides.  Empedocles  did  study  natural 
science,  and  he  did  give  himself  out  to  be  of  divine  origin,  but 
he  was  no  impostor  in  science,  and  in  his  divine  origin  he  al 
least  firmly  believed.  His  is  a  character  full  of  apparent  con- 
tradictions :  he  was  an  abstract  thinker,  but  a  practical  poli- 
tician ;  he  was  steeped_  in  mysticism,  but  studied  the  material 
welfare  of  his  fellow-citizens  ;  though  he  achieved  wonders  in 
natural  science,  he  preferred  to  claim  supernatural  powers  ;  in 
him  artistic  prose,  according  to  Aristotle,  has  its  ultimate 
founder,  yet  he  wrote  in  verse ;  he  is  the  most  poetical  of 
philosophers,  and  yet  his  works  differ  from  prose  only  in  that 
they  are  in  metrical  form. 

A  little  younger  than  the  philosopher  Anaxagoras,  who  was 
born  B.C.  500,  and  a  little  older  than  the  rhetorician  Gorgias,  the 
date  of  whose  birth  was  B.C.  480,  Empedocles  may  be  inferred 
to  have  been  born  about  B.C.  490.  The  place  of  his  birth  was 
Agrigentum  in  Sicily,  a  city  which  in  splendour  rivalled  Syra- 
cuse. He  belonged  to  a  wealthy  family,  for  his  grandfather, 
after  whom  he  was  named,  won  the  chariot  race  at  the  Olympian 
games,  and  only  kings  and  persons  of  great  wealth  could  afford 
to  breed  or  purchase  horses  capable  of  carrying  off  this  prize. 
We  have  no  explicit  information  about  his  youtli,  but  the 
educational  influences  which  existed  in  Sicily  and  in  Agri- 
gentum, and  to  which  doubtless  he  was  subjected,  explain  his 
subsequent  career.  The  mysticism  of  his  philosopliy  was  im- 
bibed by  him  from  the  Pytliagoreans,  who  were  scattered 
through  Sicily  and  South  Italy.     His  natural  science  was  pro- 


EPIC  poetry:  other  epic  poets.  103 

bably  derived  from  the  celebrated  physicians  Acron  and  Pau- 
Banias,  who  flourished  in  Sicily  in  his  time.  Finally,  the  elo- 
quence which  served  him  in  his  political  life  was  not  his  pecu- 
liar attribute,  but  distinguished  the  Sicilian  race,  to  whom  the 
germs  of  oratory  developed  later  in  Athens  were  due.  The 
wealth  and  position  which  Empedocles  by  his  birth  enjoyed 
brought  political  duties  with  them ;  and  when  Thero  the 
tyrant,  whose  rule  had  raised  Agrigentum  to  the  highest  ele- 
vation it  attained,  had  died,  Empedocles,  following  the  tradi- 
tions of  his  family,  assisted  in  establishing  the  liberty  which 
he  subsequently  did  so  much  to  preserve.  He  purged  oligarchy 
from  the  city,  and  declined  to  accept  the  sole  rule  of  the  state, 
which  the  citizens  offered  him.  But  throughout  he  was  some- 
what theatrical :  he  aimed  at  effect.  When  he  appeared  in 
public,  it  was  with  a  dress  and  surroundings  deliberately  designed 
to  create  the  impression  that  Empedocles  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  other  people.  Yet  this  was  not  affectation ;  it 
was  the  nature  of  the  man.  If  he  posed,  he  had  an  unaffected 
admiration  for  the  attitudes  he  struck.  If  he  arrayed  himself 
in  theatrical  costume,  he  also  wrote  an  appreciative  description 
of  it  in  his  philosophical  works.  When  we  find  him  in  the 
latrica  professing  not  only  to  heal  all  known  diseases,  but  ready 
to  undertake  the  cure  of  old  age  and  to  provide  a  remedy  for 
death,  we  should  be  doing  him  an  injustice  to  dismiss  him  as  a 
quack.  He,  like  a  medicine-man  among  the  negroes,  also  pro- 
fessed to  bring  or  avert  rain,  and  undoubtedly  believed  in  his 
ability  to  do  what  he  professed  as  much  as  any  medicine-man, 
and  with  greater  reason,  since  his  acquirements  in  natural  science 
were  considerable,  and  his  mysticism  obscured  the  limits  which 
Nature  has  placed  on  Science.  His  unequivocal  statement  in 
the  Katharnioi  that  he  is  no  mortal,  but  an  immortal  god,  is 
itself  a  testimony  to  his  good  faith,  being  but  a  piece  of  his 
faith  in  himself.  At  the  same  time,  as  we  shall  shortly  see, 
the  assertion  loses  something  of  its  crudeness  when  viewed 
through  the  haze  of  his  mystic  philosophy. 

It  is  necessary  to  have  some  knowledge  of  the  character  of 
Empedocles  in  order  to  appreciate  his  literary  worth  at  its  proper 
value.  In  his  case,  if  ever,  the  style  is  the  man.  In  the  first 
place,  he  clothed  his  scientific  writings  in  verse  instead  of  prose, 
in  the  same  way  as  he  wore  purple,  for  the  sake  of  effect.^  In 
the  next  place,  however,  we  have  to  recognise  that,  notwith- 
standing his  pretence,  he  did  possess  solid  literary  merit.     His 

1  Aristotle,  Poetics,  i,  ov8iv  di  Koivbv  iaTiv'Ofi'^ptj}  Kal  ''E/j.ireSoKXei  vXrjv  rh 
f/Lirpov  di&  rbv  p.iv  ttohjttji'  SIkuiov  KoKeiy,  rbv  5^  (pvcno\6yoy  fj.S.XKoi>  ^  voi.rjTi)v. 


I04  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

mysticism  was  adapted  for  poetry ;  it  lent  itself  to  metaphorical 
expression  and  lofty  diction  ;  and  Aristotle,  who  denies  that 
the  medical  works  of  Empedocles  are  poetry,  although  they  are 
in  verse,  also  calls  attention  to  his  poetical  qualities  elsewhere.^ 
Empedocles  speaks  of  himself  as  giving  oracles  to  the  multi- 
tude who  thronged  round  him  clamouring  for  his  supernatural 
assistance,  and  his  style  is  frequently  oracular  in  character. 
He  was  grandiose  in  his  writing  as  in  his  bearing.  Artificiality 
is  breathed  in  his  verses,  and  was  the  breath  of  his  life :  the 
poetical  devices  and  tricks  of  expression  which  marked  the 
early  rhetoricians  are  to  be  traced  even  in  the  fragments  we 
possess ;  they  are  alluded  to  by  Aristotle,  who  seems  to  have 
regarded  him,  in  spite  of  his  writing  in  verse,  as  the  first  of  the 
rhetoricians,-  and  were  probably  transmitted  by  Empedocles  to 
his  pupil  Gorgias,  who  transplanted  them  to  Athens. 

According  to  Diogenes  Laertius,  Aristotle  ascribed  to  Empe- 
docles tragedies  and  other  works,  the  Invasion  of  Xerxes,  a 
hymn  to  Apollo,  and  a  Politics.  But  as  no  author  quotes  a 
single  line  from  any  of  these  works,  and  as  a  later  poet  named 
Empedocles  seems  to  have  certainly  composed  tragedies,  it  is 
not  improbable  that  Diogenes,  who  was  a  somewhat  careless 
compiler,  has  confounded  the  two  authors  named  Empedocles. 
The  works  by  the  philosopher  Empedocles  of  which  we  possess 
fragments  are  the  Katharmoi,  latrica,  Physics,  and  some  epi- 
grams. In  the  Katharmoi,  or  Songs  of  Purification,  he  pro- 
fesses, as  the  name  indicates,  to  purify  from  sin  or  crime  all 
•who  come  to  him,  as  in  the  latrica,  or  Songs  of  Healing,  he 
professed  to  cure  all  diseases,  old  age,  and  death.  His  medical 
knowledge  was  indeed  extensive  for  his  age,  and  he  is  said  to 
have  eflfected  some  remarkable  cures,  restoring  the  apparently 
dead,  and  so  on.  But  he  professed  also  to  have  supernatural 
powers,  and  this  profession  is  connected  with  the  mysticism 
which  found  its  exposition  in  the  Physics,  or  poem  on  Nature. 
Into  the  mixture  of  mysticism  and  scientific  speculation  which 
made  up  the  philosophy  of  Empedocles  it  is  beyond  our  pro- 
vince to  go.  We  will  only  say  that  he  reached  the  conception 
of  four  elements,  earth,  air,  fire,  and  water,  or,  as  he  preferred 
mystically  to  call  them,  Zeus,  Hera,  ATdoneus,  and  Nestis  (the 
last  name  seems  to  have  been  his  own  invention).     These  ele- 

1  In  the  lost  Dialogue  on  the  Poets,  Aristotle  said,  'Ofir/ptKbs  6  'E/j.ireSoK\TJt 
Kal  Seivbs  Trepl  rijif  ippiaiv  yiyove,  fieTa<popLK6s  re  ibu  Kal  rois  flXXotj  "ots  irepl 
•KOir)TLKrjv  iTTiTevyfiaai  xp^fJ-fos,  as  we  learn  from  Diogenes  Laertius,  viii.  57. 

2  Sext.  Emp.  vii.  6  says,  'EfiTreSoKXia  fikv  yd.p  6  'ApicxTOT^rjs  tp-qal  rpuror 
fftjTopiKrjv  KeKivrjKivai. 


EPIC  POETRY  :  OTHER  EP.C  POETS.        lOj 

mtnts  are  indestructible.  They  may  be  combined,  and  the 
compounds  into  which  they  combine  may  be  reduced  by  disso- 
lution to  the  four  elements  again.  But  for  these  processes  two 
principles  are  required  :  the  principle  of  combination,  which  he 
calls  mystically  Friendship,  and  which  is  the  Love  of  Parmenides 
and  the  Pythagoreans;  and  the  principle  of  dissolution,  which  he 
calls  Discord.  The  tendency  of  Friendsliip  operating  on  the 
four  elements  is  to  produce  a  Sphere,  that  is,  to  give  to  the 
universe  a  perfect  shape  ;  but  there  exists  the  opposite  tendency 
of  Discord,  and  the  history  of  the  universe  is  the  resultant  of 
their  conflict.  The  principle  of  Discord,  however,  is  not  limited 
to  the  material  world  in  its  action.  It  operates  also  in  the 
moral  world.  It  prompts  a  daemon  to  some  crime,  and  then 
for  thrice  ten  thousand  years  the  daemon,  in  exile  from  heaven, 
has  to  inhabit  the  bodies  of  men  and  living  creatures.  The 
poem  On  Nature  begins  with  a  statement  of  this  law,  and  the 
declaration  that  Empedocles  is  himself  a  daemon  undergoing 
the  punishment  of  a  mortal  body.  After  this  exordium,  the 
first  book  seems  to  have  dealt  with  the  four  elements,  the 
second  with  the  nature  and  condition  of  man,  the  third  with 
the  gods  and  things  divine. 

Somewhat  late  in  life  Empedocles  is  said  to  have  commenced 
his  travels.  He  journeyed  to  the  Peloponnesus,  attended  the 
Olympian  games,  and  there  recited  his  Songs  of  Purification. 
How  long  a  period  elapsed  before  he  returned  to  Sicily  is  un- 
known, but  it  is  reported  that  he  found  it  impossible  to  gain  ad- 
mission into  his  native  town  when  he  did  return,  and  he  resumed 
his  travels.  He  is  said  to  have  visited  Athens,  and  it  is  not 
improbable  that,  like  most  celebrated  men  of  the  age,  he  visited 
the  intellectual  centre  of  Greece.  He  died  between  sixty  and 
seventy  years  of  age.  Many  strange  storiea  are  told  of  hifl 
death,  the  mode  of  which  remains  unknown. 


BOOK  11. 

LYRIC    POETRY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   ELEGIAC   AND   IAMBIC   POETS. 

Epio  poetry  was  succeeded  in  Greece  by  lyric  poetry.  The 
germs  of  lyric  poetry  already  existed  in  the  epic  period,  but 
for  their  development  it  was  necessary  that  a  change  should 
occur  in  the  conditions  of  social  and  political  life.  The  poli- 
tical and  social  changes  which  developed  the  germs  of  lyric 
poetry  were  the  overthrow  of  regal  governments,  the  foundation 
of  colonies,  and  the  extension  of  commerce.  The  overthrow 
of  royal  government  tended  to  the  liberty  of  the  citizens.  The 
people  ceased  to  live  for  the  sake  of  supporting  a  king,  and 
began  to  Jive  for  themselves  and  their  country.  This  shift  of 
material  interests  was  followed  by  a  corresponding  shift  in 
literary  interest.  So  long  as  the  king  was  the  state,  Priam's 
fortunes  were  necessarily  the  poet's  materials ;  but  when  the 
citizens  became  the  state,  their  interests,  their  hopes,  and  their 
fears  became  the  theme  which  interested  them  and  inspired  the 
poet.  The  tendency  of  colonisation  worked  to  the  same  end. 
Settlers  are  compelled  to  rely  on  their  own  exertions  ;  birth  and 
position  go  for  little  in  the  new  country  ;  it  is  the  man  of  most 
capacity  and  energy  who  comes  to  the  top.  In  a  colony,  the 
individual  citizen  gained  an  importance  which  was  beyond  his 
reach  in  the  old  country,  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that 
the  extension  of  commerce  had  a  similar  result.  As  commerce 
grew,  there  opened  before  the  individual  citizen  the  possibility 
of  attaining  to  wealth  and  importance. 

The  result  of  these  changes  was  lyric  poetry.  Men's  thoughts 
were  fixed  on  the  present,  not  on  the  past.  Politically  and 
socially  a  break  had  been  made.  The  ideal  past,  depicted  in 
epic  poetry,  was  no  longer  felt  to  have  any  relation  to  th« 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ELEGIAC  AND  L&MBIC  POETS.         1 07 

present,  and  was,  therefore,  no  longer  fitted  to  supply  inspira- 
tion to  the  poet  or  to  engage  the  attention  of  his  hearers. 
The  hour  called  not  for  a  narrative  of  the  fight  round  Troy, 
but  for  lays  such  as  those  of  CaUinus  or  Tyrtfg.n ywh i oh  could 
rouse  a  man  to  fight  "  for  the  ashes  of  his  fathers  and  the 
temples  of  his  gods," 

The  first  difference  between _epic  an d_lyric  is  that  the  former 
is  narrative  and  the  latter  is  the  expression  of  emotion.  But 
this  difference  implies  another.  In  epic  the  poet  never  himself 
appears.  He  narrates  everything,  but  never  gives  his  own  view 
— as  his  own  view — of  anything.  The  essence  of  lyric,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  that  in  it  the  poet  expresses  his  own  personal; 
emotions.  Lyric  is  personal,  epic  impersonal ;  or,  as  the  same' 
idea  is  sometimes  expressed,  the  former  is  subjective,  the  lattei' 
objective.     '  ^ 

The  conditions  under  which  lyric  poetry  was  developed  in 
Greece  gave  it  some  characteristics  which  distinguish  it  from,^^ 
and  are  brought  into  reli,ef  b);^^  the  lyric  poetry  of  other 
nations.  Modern  lyric  comprises  everything  within  its  range ; 
anything  which  touches  the  poet  and  moves  him  to  song  may 
provide  a  subject — Chapman's  Homer  or  the  west  wind,  a 
nation  or  a  skylark,  the  future  or  the  past.  But  Greek 
lyric  poetry,  born  of  a  reaction  from  contemplation  of  the 
past  to  action  in  the  pr^esent,  had  not  this  universal  range. 
It  draws  its  themes  from,  and  is  always  related  to,  the 
present.  Solon  addresses  his  fellow-citizens  not  on  the  past, 
but  on  the  present  condition  .of  AtJ;ica.  Theognis  deals  with 
the  politics,  Tyrtaeus  with  the  wars,  of  his  o^vn  time.  And 
although,  in  choral  poetry,  the  theme  is  frequently  mythical, 
such  poetry  always  was  composed  for,  and  related  to,  a  de- 
finite religious  festival.  In  fact,  it  was  "  occasional  poetry," 
as  is  clearly  seen  in  those  odes  of  Pindar  which  were  written 
to  celebrate  the  occasion  of  some  victory  in  the  various  national 
games  of  Greece.  Greek  lyric  poetry  is,  then,  distinguished 
from  other  lyric  poetry  by  always  having  reference  to  tlie 
present,  and  this  is  due  to  the  conditions  under  which  it 
was  developed^  It  is  also  distinguished  by  the  occasional 
presence  of  mythical  element.  This,  as  we  have  said,  occurs 
in  choral  lyrics  written  for  some  festival,  and  in  honour  of  the 
gods.  In  this,  too,  we  have  a  trace  of  the  conditions  under 
which  Greek  lyric  was  developed,  for  the  mythical  element  is 
an  inheritance  from  the  epic  period.  Another  inheritance,  and 
also  another  distinctive  feature  of  Greek  lyric,  is  th^  gnomic  or 
didactic  element*    This  was  apparent  in  Hesiod,  and  reappears 


Io8  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

most  markedly  in  Theognis,  although  it  is  not  confined  to  him, 
but  is  present  in  all  varieties  of  Greek  lyric. 

We  have  considered  the  social  and  political  conditions  under 
which  the  germs  of  lyric  poetry  were  developed,  and  we  have 
seen  how  the  characteristics  peculiar  to  Greek  lyric  were  due  to 
the  conditions  of  its  development.  We  may  now  proceed  to 
consider  the  germs  themselves.  They  were  of  two  kinds — 
religious  chants  and  popular  songs.  No  specimen  of  the  former 
has  come  down  to  us,  but  we  may  reasonably  conjecture  that 
they  had  the  same  origin  and  were  much  the  same  in  kind  as 
the  Saliaric  hymns  of  the  Romans.  They  were  probably  metrical 
invocations  of  the  gods,  of  a  simple  and  inartistic  kind,  addressing 
the  "od  in  all  his  various  attributes  and  with  his  various  name's, 
containing  much  repetition  and  tautology,  and  doing  the  duty  of 
liturgies.  They  were  preserved  by  hereditary  priesthoods,  being 
transmitted  from  generation  to  generation,  and  receiving  occa- 
sional additions.  In  Attica  the  Eumolpidae  were  a  hereditary 
priesthood  of  this  kind,  connected  with  the  worship  of  Demeter 
at  Eleusis,  whose  hymns  were  traditionally  referred  to  Pamphus 
as  their  author.  But  as  Apollo  was  the  god  of  song,  it  was 
with  his  cult  that  the  most  important  of  these  religious  chants 
were  associated.  The  Psean  which  was  the  name  of  the  form 
of  hymn  used  in  the  worship  of  Apollo,  seems  to  have  been  of 
two  kinds,  corresponding  to  two  attributes  of  the  god.  He 
was  the  god  of  victory,  and  to  him  the  Greeks  in  Homer  sing 
praises  and  thanksgiving  for  victory.  The  hymn  itself  was 
probably  sung  by  a  single  voice,  and  the  worshippers  sang  as  a 
chorus  the  refrain,  "  lo  Psean  !  lo  Psean  !"  But  Apollo  was  also 
the  god  who  sent  pestilence,  and  the  people,  when  threatened  or 
stricken  with  plague,  prayed  in  chorus  to  him  for  deliverance. 
The  Nome  was  another  form  of  hymn  with  which  Apollo  was 
worshipped,  and  seems  to  be  distinguished  from  the  Psean  by 
the  fact  that  it  was  sung  by  a  priest,  and  was  not  a  special 
prayer  for  deliverance  from  pestilence  or  a  special  thanksgiving 
for  victory,  but  praise  of  a  more  general  character.  Naturally 
the  songs  in  honour  of  Apollo  flourished  most  at  .the  two  most 
important  centres  of  his  worship,  Delos  and  Delphi.  The  origin 
of  the  Nome  was  traditionally  ascribed  to  Delphi,  and  Chryso- 
themis  and  Philammon,  mythical  personages,  were  credited  with 
its  authorship.  The  hymns  which  for  generations  had  been 
sung  at  Delos  were  connected  with  the  name  of  Olen.  The 
fact  that  Olen  was  said  to  have  been  a  Lycian,  taken  in  con- 
nection with  the  existence  in  Delos  of  a  Phenician  worship 
(imported  from  Lycia)    before   the   Ionic  worship,   may  indi- 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  POETS.         1 09 

cate  that  the  hymns  ascribed  to  him  had  a  foreign  element  in 
them. 

A  few  inconsiderable  fragments  of  songs  of  the  people,  quoted 
by  iithenaeus,  Plutarch,  Pollux,  scholiasts  and  grammarians, 
ha^  e  come  down  to  us,  and  from  the  same  sources  we  hear  of 
othe/  songs  of  which  we  have  no  specimens.  Some  of  these 
fragments  are  certainly  of  comparatively  late  date,  but  as  songs 
of  the  people  change  very  little  in  the  course  of  time,  we  may 
learn  something  even  from  the  later  fragments.  The  reason 
that  so  few  of  these  songs  have  been  preserved  is  that  the 
literary  lyric  killed  the  popular  song,  and  it  is  only  in  those 
parts  of  Greece  which  remained  comparatively  uncultured  that 
the  people's  songs  survived.  Thus  it  was  in  Sparta  that  cradle- 
songs  flourished  most,  and  from  Sparta  come  a  couple  of  frag- 
ments of  songs  which  accompanied  dancing.  In  one  of  these 
fragments  the  dancers  encourage  each  other  to  keep  on  dancing ; 
the  other  consists  of  three  lines,  one  of  which  was  uttered  by 
the  young  men,  the  next  by  the  old  men,  and  the  third  by  the 
boys.  From  Bottiaea  we  have  a  fragment — "Away  to  Athens, 
hie !  " — of  the  song  which  the  women  of  Bottiaea  sang  while 
dancing.  Elsewhere  also  the  custom  of  singing  while  dancing 
prevailed ;  and  about  another  fragment  which  runs,  "  Where 
are  my  roses  ?  where  are  my  violets  1  where  are  my  beautiful 
flowers  1  Here  are  your  roses ;  here  are  your  violets ;  here 
are  your  beautiful  flowers,"  Athenaeus  says  that  the  accompany- 
ing dance  was  mimetic.  It  may  be  noticed  incidentally  that 
men  and  women  do  not  seem  to  have  danced  together.  Games, 
as  well  as  dancing,  were  accompanied  by  songs.  Greek  boys 
played  a  game,  in  which  one  boy,  being  blindfolded,  sang  a 
verse,  "  I  will  hunt  a  fly  of  brass ; "  to  which  the  other  boys 
replied,  "  You  may  hunt,  but  you  will  not  catch  us ; "  and  in- 
flicted blows  on  him  with  straps,  till  he  caught  one  of  them. 
Greek  girls  also  had  a  game  of  a  less  violent  description,  with 
questions  and  answers  to  be  sung,  Greek  children  invoked  the 
appearance  of  the  sun  in  much  the  same  way  as  in  the  English 
"  Rain,  rain,  go  away,"  &c.  The  most  interesting  of  these 
children's  songs  is  the  Ehodian  Swallow-song,  which  has  been 
fortunately  preserved,  apparently  complete,  by  Athenaeus.  In 
the  spring  the  boys  of  Rhodes  went  round  from  house  to  house 
singing  this  song,  in  which  they  announced  the  return  of  the 
swallow  with  the  returning  year,  and  demanded  to  be  supplied 
with  cheese  and  wine.  The  Crow-song  seems  to  have  been  of 
the  same  kind  :  the  boys  went  about  with  crows  in  their  hands, 
and  making  much  the  ^me  request  as  in  the  Swallow-song. 


»*' 


I  I O  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

In  these  songs  the  boys  played  at  beggars,  but  real  beggars 
also  had  their  songs,  although  we  have  no  specimen  of  them. 
Working  men,  bakers,  and  rowers  all  had  songs  to  accompany 
and  lighten  their  labours.  The  women  had  their  weaving- 
songs  ;  at  Elis,  their  vintage-songs ;  and  they  sang  while  wash- 
ing clothes  and  while  working  in  the  mill.  The  song  of  the 
reapers  was  called  Litj'erses,  and  as  this  was  the  name  cf  the 
son  of  Midias,  king  of  Phrygia,  the  song  may  have  come  from 
that  country.  The  shepherds'  songs,  at  any  rate  in  some 
instances,  seem  to  have  been  of  a  sentimental  kind,  and  we 
have  a  fragment  of  one  which  told  a  story  of  unrequited  love. 
Love-songs  naturally  formed  an  important  part  of  the  popular 
songs,  and  in  Locris  such  songs  were  much  cultivated ;  but  we 
have  a  fragment  of  one  only.  Drinking-songs  can  hardly  be 
reckoned  among  the  pre-lyric  popular  songs.  They  were  intro- 
duced during  the  lyrical  period  by  Terpander  from  Asia  Minor, 
and  eventually  some,  such  as  those  celebrating  the  glorious 
deed  of  Harmodius  and  Aristogiton,  attained  great  popularity, 
and  were  genuine  songs  of  the  people.  More  important,  as  the 
roots  of  lyrical  poetry,  than  any  of  the  songs  of  tlie  people  yet 
mentioned,  were  tlie  wedding-songs  and  dirges.  The  dirge  was 
known  to  Homer,  and  as  all  peoples  seem  to  possess  some- 
thing of  the  kind,  it  may  well  have  been  original  with  the 
Greeks,  although  indications  are  not  wanting  that  some  foreign 
— Carian — elements  were  introduced.  This  form  of  song  was 
afterwards  developed  by  Pindar,  and  came  to  be  of  much  im- 
portance in  the  lyrical  part  of  Greek  tragedy.  The  wedding- 
song  was  also  known  to  Homer,  who  calls  it  the  Hymen^eus. 
It  became  literary  and  lyrical  in  the  hands  of  Pindar  and 
Sappho,  and,  as  the  Epithalamion,  it  has  passed  into  the  lyric 
poetry  of  all  European  nations.  Pinally,  amongst  the  songs  of 
the  people  we  have  to  notice  an  important  class  borrowed  from 
the  East.  Their  conmion  feature  is  tliat  they  are  laments  for 
the  untimely  and  undeserved  death  of  some  beauteous  youth. 
In  all  cases  they  seem  to  have  been  of  Oriental  origin,  to  have 
originally  lamented  the  departure  or  death  of  summer,  and  to 
have  been  amalgamated  with  some  local  Greek  myth.  Thus 
the  Linos,  of  which  we  have  a  fragment  (perhaps  not  in  its 
original  form),  came  from  Phenicia  (where,  as  also  in  Cyprus 
and  Bithynia,  Herodotus  recognised  it),  and  was  connected  with 
the  story  of  the  beauteous  Linos,  who  was  killed  by  Apollo  for 
challenging  him  to  a  contest  in  song.  The  fragment  that  we 
have  ascribes  the  invention  of  song  to  Linos,  and  relates  the 
death  of  Linos  and  the  lament  of  the  Muses  for  him.     The 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  POETS.         I  I  I 

Linos  was  sung  by  a  single  voice,  and  the  refrain  "  Ai  Linon  !  Ai 
Linon  ! "  by  a  chorus.  The  derivation  of  Ai  Linon  may  be  the 
Semitic  ai  le  im,  woe  is  us.  In  Tegea  of  Arcadia  the  Greeks 
explained  the  lamentation  as  being  for  the  death  of  Skephros, 
who  was  killed  by  his  brother.  Sterility  fell  on  the  land  in 
consequence,  and  an  oracle  ordered  a  yearly  festival,  at  which 
Skephros  was  to  be  mourned  for ;  and  hence  the  song  was 
called  the  Skephros.  The  Hyacinth  song  has  the  same  origin ; 
it  was  localised  in  Sparta,  and  came  there  through  the  island  of 
Cythera,  a  Phenician  settlement  of  old.  Most  famous  of  all 
these  lamentations  was  that  for  Adonis.  The  Phenician  origin 
of  this  song,  and  of  the  festival  at  which  it  was  sung,  is  indi- 
cated by  the  mythological  device  of  making  Adonis  the  son  of 
Phoenix ;  by  the  obviously  Semitic  derivation  of  the  word 
(adonai,  lord),  and  by  the  fact  that  the  song  and  festival  can 
be  traced  back  to  Samos,  and  thence  to  Cyprus,  whither  they 
first  spread  from  Phenicia. 

- —  Having  seen  what  were  the  germs  of  lyric  poetry,  and  what 
were  the  conditions  under  which  they  were  developed,  we  may  ''■-•^-•■*^ 
now  proceed  to  consider  the  various  kinds  of  lyric  poetry. 
They  are  three,  the  Elegiac,  the  Iambic,  and  the  Lyric,  in  the 
narrower  or  specific  sense,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  Melic. 
They  are  alike  in  that  the}'  are  all  subjective,  expressing  the 
poet's  own  emotions  as  such,  and  that  they  were  all  designed 
for  a  musical  accompaniment.  They  difi"er  in  metre ;  and  in 
that  Elegy  and  Iambic  poetry  are  more  subjective  than  Melic  ; 
and  that  choral  odes  belong  to  Melic.  In  dialect.  Elegy  and 
Iambic  poetry,  as  they  originated  in  Ionia,  were  Ionic  :  Melic 
poetry  drew  on  the  other  dialects.  Choruses,  having  originated 
both  amongst  the  Dorians  and  the  ^olians,  contain  both  ^olic 
and  Doric,  though  the  latter  came  in  course  of  time  to  pre- 
dominate. Melic  songs,  as  opposed  to  choruses,  had  no  fixed 
dialect,  but  each  poet  used  his  native  dialect. 

The  origin  of  elegy  is  closely  connected  with  the  improve-  \  ( 
ments  made  in  the  flate  in  Phrygia.  Elegy  spread  with  the 
flute  from  Ionia  to  Greece,  and  the  word  eler/y  itself  can  hardly 
•be  regarded  as  a  Greek  one,  although  whether  it  is  derived 
from  an  Armenian  word  (eler/u)  meaning  a  flute  or  reed,  or 
from  another  Armenian  word  [jllmxikan)  meaning  "  mournful," 
is  uncertain.  The  original  meaning  of  the  word  in  Greek 
seems  to  have  included  both  ideas,  and  to  have  been  a  funeral 
dirge  on  the  flute.  Then  the  word  seems  to  have  been  used 
of  a  distich  consisting  of  a  hexameter  and  a  pentameter ;  and 
then  to  have  been  applied  to  any  poem  made   up   of   such 


112  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

distiches.  It  is  only  in  Roman  and  late  Greek  times  that 
elegies  were  written  to  be  read.  Before  then,  elegies,  like  all 
other  poetry  of  the  creative  period  of  Greek  literature,  were 
composed  for  oral  delivery,  and  were  always  sung  or  recited  to 
a  flute  accompaniment.  \The  history  of  Greek  elegy  falls  into 
three  periods.  The  first  extends  from  the  origin  of  elegy, 
about  B.C.  700,  to  the  rise  of  the  drama.  The  next  extends  to 
Alexandrine  times,  which  constitute  the  third  period.  The 
elegy  originated  in  Ionia,  always  continued  to  be  written  in 
Ionic,  and  the  best  representatives  of  this  division  of  lyric 
poetry  were  lonians,  eg.,  Callinus  and  Mimnermus.  During 
the  first  and  most  flourishing  period  of  elegy,  it  was  used  for 
many  other  purposes  than  that  of  expressing  lamentations  and 
regret.  CaUinus  used  it  for  martial  purposes.  With  Tyrtaeus 
and  Solon  it  served  to  convey  political  precepts.  In  the  hands 
of  Theognis  it  was  largely  gnomic  or  sententious.  Mimnermus 
brought  it  back  to  its  originally  mournful  character.  In  this 
period  also  it  was  used  for  lighter  purposes,  love,  epigram,  and 
the  praise  of  wine.  In  the  second  period,  elegy  was  over- 
shadowed by  the  drama,  which  absorbed  the  best  lyric  talent 
and  grew  at  the  expense  of  elegy.  In  the  Alexandrine,  the 
third  period,  it  became,  as  we  see  from  the  specimens  preserved 
in  the  Anthology,  the  vehicle  for  conveying  the  mythological 
learning  and  the  love-songs  of  the  literati  of  the  time, 
y  The  first  elegiac  poet,  as  far  as  we  know,  was  Callinus  of 
^^Ephesus.  His  date  cannot  be  fixed  with  precision,  but  as  it 
seems  from  his  fragments  that  the  town  of  Magnesia  was  still 
in  existence  in  his  time,  and  as  from  the  fragments  of  Archi- 
lochus  it  seems  that  by  his  time  Magnesia  had  been  destroyed, 
Callinus  was  probably  rather  senior  to  Archilochus,  and  lived 
about  B.C.  700.  "Whether  Callinus  invented  the  pentameter 
and  combined  it  with  the  hexameter,  we  do  not  know.  His 
elegiacs  are  not  rudimentary,  but  we  have  no  reason  to  believe 
that  any  other  poet  had  cultivated  this  form  of  verse  before 
him,  and  there  is  nothing  improbable  in  supposing  that  lie  may 
have  invented  them  and  yet  brought  them  to  the  stage  of 
development  which  we  find  them  in  with  him.  In  point  of 
metre,  the  elegiac  is  not  greatly  difi'erent  from  the  verse  of  epic 
poetry,  for  the  pentameter  is  only  a  mutilated  hexameter.  In 
style,  too,  we  see  from  the  fragments  of  Callinus  that  Greek 
poetry  only  gradually  developed  from  epic  to  lyric,  and  did  not 
pass  by  a  bound  from  the  one  stage  to  the  other.  The  language 
of  Callinus  reminds  us  of  Homer,  and  the  spirit  is  much  the 
same.     For  the  fragments  which  we  possess   (one  of  twenty 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  POETS.         I  I  3 

Knes  and  three  insignificant  ones)  we  are  indebted  to  Stobasus 
the  anthologist  and  Strabo  the  geographer.  Strabo  probably 
knew  little  or  nothing  more  of  his  works,  and  took  these  quota- 
tions from  works  by  Demetrius  of  Skepsis  (a  pupil  of  Aristar- 
chus)  and  Callisthenes.  That  Callinus'  elegies  should  have 
been  lost  so  early  is  not  astonishing,  when  we  reflect  that  they 
were  probably  not  committed  to  writing,  and  that  having  only 
an  oral,  not  a  literary  existence,  they  would  be  peculiarly  liable 
to  perish  as  fast  as  other  elegiac  poets  arose  with  competing 
verses.  The  long  fragment  which  has  come  down  to  us  is  of  a 
maitial  kind,  encouraging  his  fellow-citizens  to  advance  against 
the  foe  by  picturing  the  disgrace  of  a  coward's  death  and  the 
glory  of  falling  nobly.  For  what  occasion  these  verses  were 
composed,  whether  for  the  war  which  was  carried  on  between 
the  poet's  own  city,  Ephesus,  and  Magnesia,  and  which  even- 
tually resulted  in  the  victory  of  the  former,  or  in  anticipation 
of  an  attack  by  the  Cimmerians,  who  about  this  time  invaded 
Lydia,  defeated  Midas,  and  threatened  the  Greek  cities,  is  un- 
certain. But  the  verses  themselves  have  a  fine  vigour,  and  ring 
out  like  a  true  call  to  battle.  It  has,  indeed,  been  maintained 
that  most  of  this  fragment  is  not  by  Callinus,  but  by  Tyrtaeus ; 
but  the  weight  of  critical  authority  is  against  the  supposition. 

About  the  same  time  as,  but  junior  to,  Callinus  was  Archilo- 
chu.s,  who  also  wrote  elegies,  but  whose  fame  is  his  iambics.  As 
other  poets  also  frequently  vsrote  both  iambics  and  elegiacs,  we 
shall  find  it  convenient  to  treat  the  two  classes  of  writers  side 
by  side  ;  and  this  mode  of  proceeding  has  the  further  justifica-  I 
tion  that,  different  in  character  as  iambic  originally  was  from 
elegiac  poetry,  the  two  kinds  of  poetry  had  certain  important 
features  in  common,  and  they  ran  through  much  the  same 
career.  They  resemble  each  other,  in  the  first  place,  in  being 
of  Ionian  origin,  being  written  in  the  Ionic  dialect,  and  being  t-*" 
peculiarly  and  distinctively  expressive  of  the  qualities  of  the  .  ,7^' 
Ionic  character.  Their  careers  are  alike  in  that  both  soon  lost 
the  character  which  they  at  first  possessed ;  elegy,  as  we  have 
Been,  came  soon  to  be  employed  for  many  other  purposes  than 
the  expression  of  lamentation,  and  iambic  poetry,  as  we  shall 
Bee,  was  at  first  the  means  used  by  Archilochus  for  conveying 
perSjJtial  satire,  but  lost  that  character  in  the  hands  of  Solon, 
although  he  used  iambic  verse  as  a  means  of  combatmg  his 
personal  opponents.  Eventually,  as  the  verse  of  dialogue  in 
tragedy,  it  served  to  express  every  emotion  of  the  human  heart. 
Finally,  as  elegiac  poetry  was  overshadowed  by  the  drama,  so 
the  drama  absorbed   iambic  poetry,  which,  however,  did  not, 

H 


114  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

like  elegy,  revive  again,  except  in  the  modified  form  of  the 
choliambics  nsed  by  late  fable  writers,  such  as  Babrius. 

Although  Archilochus  was  the  founder  of  iambic  poetry,  he 
"can  hardly  be  regarded  as  the  inventor  of  the  iambus,  and  the 
origin  of  the  verse  is  uncertain.  The  usual  account  is  that  it 
originated  in  the  worship  of  Demeter.  At  the  festivals  of  this 
goddess  a  license  was  permitted  which  resembled  that  of  the 
saturnalia  at  Rome.  Every  restraint  at  other  times  put  upon 
the  tongue  was  on  these  occasions  removed ;  abuse,  jests,  deri- 
sion, and  satire  might  be  cast  by  any  man  against  any  other; 
and  from  this  custom,  and  from  a  Greek  Avord  meaning  "  to 
cast,"  the  word  iambics  and  the  abusive  nature  of  the  verse  are 
usually  derived.  With  this  view  further  harmonises  the  fact 
that  the  worship  of  Demeter  Avas  in  great  favour  in  the  isle 
of  Paros,  where  Archilochus  was  born.  But  the  word  iambus 
suggests,  by  its  resemblance,  a  connection  with  the  words  dithy- 
rambus,  thriambus,  which  are  in  all  probability  not  of  Greek 
origin  ;  and  the  only  evidence  for  the  connection  of  the  iambus 
with  Demeter  is  the  story  that  it  was  the  maid  lambe  who,  by 
her  jests,  first  brought  a  smile  to  the  face  of  Demeter  after  the 
loss  of  her  daughter. 

About  the  life  of  Archilochus  we  know  little  more  than  is  to 
be  inferred  from  the  fragments  of  his  works.  These  are  unfor- 
tunately few;  but  his  poetry  is  so  subjective,  the  man  is  so  open 
and  frank  on  all  that  concerns  him,  that  there  is  scarcely  a  frag- 
ment, however  inconsiderable  in  size,  which  does  not  give  us 
some  information  about  his  life  and  character.  In  estimating 
his  character  it  is  necessary  always  to  bear  in  mind  his  complete 
innocence  of  disguise  and  his  even  reckless  frankness,  because 
the  best  known  fact  in  his  life — the  vengeance  which  he  took 
in  his  verses  on  Lycambes  for  first  betrothing  his  daughter 
Keobule  to  him  and  then  refusing  him  her  hand — is  liable  to 
misinterpretation ;  and  the  more  so  since  the  later  Greeks,  in 
order  to  enhance — perhaps  to  comprehend — the  tremendous 
nature  of  his  onslaught,  added  the  story  that  in  consequence 
of  his  verses  both  Lycambes  and  Neobule  committed  suicide. 
This  might  lead  us  to  infer  that  there  was  something  underhand 
or  even  cowardly  in  this  mode  of  vengeance — that  Archilochus' 
weapons  were  not  only  as  keen  but  as  venomous  as  Pope's.  But 
this  would  be  to  entirely  misread  his  life  and  character.  Archi- 
lochus was  not  only  a  poet  of  unsurpassed  vigoiir,  he  was  a  man 
of  energy  and  action  who  touched  life  at  all  jioints.  Impetuoun 
and  daring,  he  led  a  life  of  adventure  and  romance.  Born  in 
the  island  of  Paros,  a  block  of  purest  marble,  whose  perpendi- 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  POETS,  I  I  5 

cular  cliffs  run  up  two  thousand  feet  from  the  sea,  and  whose 
beauty  he  saw  with  a  poet's  eye  (Fragment  51),  Archilochus 
there  became  familiar  with  a  sailor's  life,  and  learned  to  love 
the  sea,  over  which  he  was  to  wander  often.  When  quite 
a  youtli,  having  his  youthful  and  ardent  imagination  fired 
with  fabulous  reports  of  gold-mines  in  Thasos,  he  sailed  for 
that  ancient  seat  of  Phenician  mining.  His  expectations  were 
high,  and  his  disappointment  therefore  profound.  The  vehe- 
mence of  his  expression  marks  the  force  of  the  impression 
which  Thasos  made  on  him  ;  it  is  as  rough  as  a  donkey's  back, 
there  is  not  one  fine  or  lovely  or  beautiful  place  in  it  (Fr.  21). 
In  this  frame  of  mind  he  would  be  ready  to  believe  that  his  El 
Dorado,  if  not  situated  in  the  island  of  Thasos,  might  be  on  the 
mainland  over  against  it ;  and,  even  if  gold  were  no  more 
to  be  found  there  than  on  the  island,  at  least  there  would  be 
fighting.  Thither,  therefore,  he  went,  and  there  he  was  not 
disappointed  in  the  fighting.  After  this  he  must  have  returned 
to  Paros,  and  there  have  met  Neobule.  His  love  for  her  was 
as  passionate  as  might  be  expected  in  a  man  of  his  poetical  and 
impetuous  temperament,  and  some  of  his  fragments  (84,  85)  still 
breathe  the  flame  with  which  he  was  consumed.  That  he  was 
capable  of  deep  feeling  is  shown  by  his  elegy  on  the  death  of  his 
sister's  husband,  and  his  capacity  for  suffering  may  be  gauged  by 
the  fact  that  he  could  only  find  for  it  a  remedy  which  is  no 
remedy — to  endure  and  not  whine  like  a  woman  (66).  This 
capacity  for  the  depths  of  suffering  implies  a  corresponding 
capacity  for  the  exaltation  of  joy,  and  it  was  with  all  the 
ardour  and  all  the  tenderness  of  this  richly  endowed  nature 
that  he  loved  Neobule.  He  sighed  "  were  it  to  touch  but  her 
hand  "  (71),  and  we  have  the  fragments  (29,  30)  of  a  perfectly 
lovely  picture  of  Neobule  (in  which  she  was  drawn  with  all  her 
own  beauty  and  the  beauty  lent  to  hep  by  the  eye  of  her  artist- 
lover),  with  a  myrtle  branch  and  rose  in  her  hand,  and  her 
tresses  overshadowing  her  shoulders.  As  his  love  had  been 
great  and  beyond  all  measure,  so  when  he  was  betrayed  his  fury 
knew  no  bounds.  Every  taunt  which  the  violence  of  passion 
could  suggest  and  the  force  of  satiric  genius  could  launch  he 
directed  against  her  who  had  deceived  him.  To  us  this  attack 
on  a  woman  has  something  cowardly  in  it ;  but  the  standard  of 
morality  is  a  shifting  one,  and  Archilochus,  whether  judged  by 
the  standard  of  his  own  or  of  our  time,  was  not  a  coward. 
This  will  be  best  understood  if  we  consider  the  famous  verses 
(6)  in  which  he  relates  his  flight  from  a  battle  in  Thrace,  and 
of  the  loss  of  his  shield.     He  tells  the  story  lightly.     Some 


I  I  6  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Saian  has  the  shield,  and  exults  in  the  trophy.  Archilochua 
did  not  abandon  it  willingly,  but  he  only  just  escaped  death;  so 
he  bids  good-bye  to  the  shield  ;  he  can  buy  another  This  view, 
that  the  cost  of  a  shield  was  the  only  loss  he  suffered  in  running 
away,  throws  a  light  on  the  character  of  Archilochus.  These 
verses  are  due  neither  to  the  effrontery  of  shamelessness  nor  to 
the  self-torture  of  a  morbid  mind.  For  the  former  to  be  the 
case,  Archilochus  must  have  been  a  coward  ;  for  the  latter,  he 
must  have  thought  himself  one.  Horace,  who  abandoned  his 
shield  at  Philippi  (and  imitated  these  verses  of  Archilochus), 
was  no  warrior,  and  consequently,  being  a  man  of  the  world, 
felt  that  he  wsjis  not  disgraced.  Demosthenes,  who  fled  from 
Chaeronea,  was  also  no  warrior,  but  had  a  higher  nature,  and 
(^  felt,  probably  unreasonably,  that  he  was  disgraced.  But  Archi- 
'  lochus  was  a  warrior ;  he  was  a  free-lance  (24)  ;  he  sailed  from 
shore  to  shore,  trusting,  as  he  says  (23),  his  life  to  the  embrace 
of  the  wave  ;  he  fought  in  many  lands,  and  eventually,  in 
Euboea,  he  fell  in  battle.  If,  then,  he  could  jest  over  his  flight, 
it  was  partly  because  his  valour  was  tried  and  above  suspicion  ; 
partly  because  his  frank  nature  scorned  concealment ;  and 
mainly  because  his  fighting  experience  had  taught  him  that 
victory  does  not  always  crown  the  brave,  and  that  there  are 
times  when  even  the  brave  must  fly  or  be  killed  uselessly. 
In  other  words,  on  this  point  his  morality  was  that  of  the 
\  mercenary.  Unfortunately,  that  was  his  morality  on  other 
matters  also.  There  was,  indeed,  much  chivalry  in  his  nature, 
e.g.,  he  will  not  insult  a  dead  foe  (69),  nor  be  overweening  in 
the  hour  of  triumph,  nor  abject  in  defeat,  and  will  take  arms 
against  his  troubles  (66)  ;  but  supreme  over  all  motives  is  ven- 
geance (65).  "  One  thing  I  can — requite  witli  great  ill  the  man 
who  does  me  ill."  This  limitation  of  his  chivalry  explains  his 
attack  on  Neobule. 

As  a  poet,  a  warrior,  a  sea-rover,  a  colonist,  a  political  par- 
tisan, an  accepted  suitor,  a  disappointed  and  infuriated  lover, 
Archilochus  touched  life  at  all  points,  and  there  was  no  quar- 
ter of  the  activity  into  which  citizen-life  was  then  breaking 
which  he  did  not  throw  himself  into  with  all  the  force  of  his 
vigorous  nature.  If  from  tlie  poetry  of  Tyrtseus  and  Solon 
we  learn  much  of  the  internal  political  condition  of  Sparta 
and  Athens,  from  the  poetry  of  Archilochus  we  get  valuable 
light  on  the  lif(!,  manners,  and  thought  of  the  time.  Thus 
we  see  that  the  position  of  women  was  one  of  much  greater 
freedom,  socially,  than  was  the  case  in  Athens  and  among 
the  Ionic  Greeks  generally  at  a  later  date  ;  and  we  find,  rathei 


LYRIC  POETRY :    ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  POETS,  I  I  J 

to  our  surprise,  that  marriage  was  preceded  by  a  term  of  love- 
making.  At  the  same  time  we  see  (if  19  is  really  genuine) 
that  the  hetaera  was  already  in  the  field,  and  that  her  position 
was  as  openly  recognised  then  as  later.  The  thought,  too,  of 
the  time  is  reflected  even  in  our  scanty  fragments  to  a  certain 
extent.  Archilochus  no  more  propounds  to  himself  or  hia 
audience  the  great  problem  of  the  meaning  of  life  than  did 
IIoDier.  The  Greeks  had  not  yet,  apparently,  begun  to  think. 
The  old  gods  still  in  appearance  hold  their  old  place.  They  are 
still  there  to  be  prayed  to ;  but  in  one  important  respect  they 
are  not  quite  the  same  as  they  were  in  Epic,  for  in  Archilochus, 
as  in  Greek  lyric  poetry  generally,  they  have  ceased  to  do  any- 
thing. Motionless  they  remain,  aiTd  Archilochus  recognises 
them  in  a  general  way,  especially  when  he  is  giving  moral 
advice  to  a  friend  ;  but  he  speaks  with  more  confidence  when 
he  says  fate  and  fortune  settle  everything.  His  enjoyment  of 
the  beauty  and  pleasures  of  life  was  marred  by  no  speculative 
doubts  on  religion  and  morality.  Suffering  led  him  to  no 
searchings  of  heart ;  his  comment  was  that  weeping  would  not 
diminish,  and  enjoying  himself  would  not  increase  the  evil  (13). 
The  sunlight  and  open  air  of  his  life  did  not  allow  him  to  be 
haunted  by  such  a  question  as,  Why  should  we  live  ?  He  is 
even  far  from  the  stage  at  which  the  advice  to  eat,  drink,  and 
b""  merry  can  be  given  ;  for  to  him  and  to  the  Greeks  of  his  time 
such  a  recommendation  would  have  seemed  superfluous.  The 
only  indication,  and  that  is  casual  and  indirect,  of  any  reflec- 
tion on  the  deeper  problems  of  life  which  is  to  be  found  in 
Archilochus  is  interesting,  both  as  being  characteristic  of  him 
and  as  showing  that,  although  the  old  religion  remained  exter- 
nally much  the  same,  there  were  at  work  beneath  the  surface 
tendencies  of  a  destructive  nature.  In  one  of  his  fables  (88)  the 
fox  prays,  "  0  Zeus,  Father  Zeus,  thine  is  power  in  heaven  ;  thou 
seest  the  deeds  of  men  that  they  are  good  and  bad,  and  in  beasts 
too  thou  visitest  insolence  and  justice."  To  thus  say  that  the 
boasts  are  quite  as  moral  as  man,  and  that  the  gods  take  as  much 
interest  in  rewarding  and  punishing  the  one  class  as  the  other,  is 
a  piece  of  cynical  cleverness  which  required  the  genius  and  the 
recklessness  of  Archilochus  to  conceive  and  to  utter,  as  it  also 
shows  that,  when  thought  was  turned  in  this  direction,  it  was 
not  in  support  of  the  old  creeds. 

From  Archilochus  to  Simonides  of  Amorgos — what  a  falling 
off!  Simonides,  like  Archilochus,  was  a  colonist,  and  moved 
from  his  native  island  Samos  to  the  island  Amorgos,  from 
which   he   gets   the   epithet  which  serves  to  distinguish  him 


I  I  8  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

from  the  later  and  more  famous  Simonides.  But  Simonides  of 
Amorgos  was  a  very  different  kind  of  colonist  from  Archilochus. 
Instead  of  the  romance  in  which  Archilochus,  the  poet-warrior, 
seemed  to  always  move,  we  become  conscious  in  Simonides  of 
the  principle  of  strict  attention  to  business,  which  better  suits 
grocery  than  poetry.  We  have,  indeed,  in  passing  from  Archi- 
lochus to  Simonides,  passed  from  the  action  of  one  set  of  the 
general  conditions  under  which  lyric  poetry  developed  to  that 
of  another.  The  liberty  of  the  individual  citizen  was  fostered 
in  its  growth  not  only  by  the  violent  revolution  of  the  sword, 
but  also  by^the  quiet  revolution  effected  by  the  expansion  of 
commerce.  ^  The  wandering  and  reckless  Archilochus,  whose 
wea^Dons  were  at  the  service  of  those  who  could  pay  for  them, 
but  whose  allegiance  was  rendered  to  none  but  the  god  of  war 
and  the  Muses,  represents  the  former  set  of  conditions,  while  the 
prosaic,  domestic,  and  querulous  Simonides  breathes  the  air  of 
the  latter.  Tlie  only  fragments  of  Simonides  of  importance  are 
one  (i)  of  2~4  lines  and  another  (7)  of  118  lines,  both  in  iambics. 
The  former  is  good  advice  to  a  young  man.  Simonides  explains 
(probably  to  his  son)  that  one  never  knows  what  will  happen; 
that  some  men  fall  ill  and  die  ;  others  fight  and  get  killed  ;  others, 
for  the  sake  of  a  living,  go  to  sea  and  get  drowned,  and  others 
commit  suicide  :  trouble  is  universal,  and  the  moral  is  to  avoid 
it  as  much  as  possible.  It  is  sometimes  said,  we  may  remark, 
that  the  poetry  of  Simonides  is  sober,  and  it  has  at  least  the 
appearance  of  having  been  written  in  old  age.  The  other 
fragment  is  in  the  same  strain  as  this.  It  is  a  description 
of  women,  who  are  divided  into  ten  classes :  to  the  first  class 
Heaven  has  given  the  qualities  of  the  pig,  to  the  second  those  of 
the  fox,  to  the  next  those  of  the  dog ;  and  so  the  poet  plods 
on  conscientiously  through  his  119  lines  and  his  ten  classes, 
each  of  which  he  dockets  and  puts  by  carefully  labelled  with  its 
ticket  ,  and,  in  conclusion,  for  fear  any  specimens  of  the  race 
should  be  lef :  unprovided  for  by  his  methodical  treatment,  he 
•utters  an  anathema  on  women  in  general.  To  these  two  frag- 
ments should  perhaps  be  added  another,  which  is  generally  in- 
cluded amongst  the  remains  of  Simonides,  the  younger,  of  Coe; 
it  is  an  elegy,  which  quotes  the  famous  line  of  Homer  that  com- 
pares the  generations  of  men  to  the  leaves  of  trees.  With  this 
line  as  a  text,  the  author  proceeds  to  remark  that  hope  springs 
in  the  breast  of  young  men,  who  think  they  will  never  die  or 
be  ill,  in  which  they  are  very  foolish. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  us  in  reading  the  remains  of 
Simonides  is — how  limited  is  his  horizon  !     When  in  the  first 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  POETS.         I  I9 

fragment  his  eye  takes  the  widest  sweep  over  human  life  and 
activity  that  it  can,  he  comprehends  precisely  what  is  seen  by 
the  smug  bourgeois.  He  knows  that  some  men  spend  their  lives 
on  the  sea,  but  when  he  goes  beyond  the  fact,  and  presumes  to 
divine  their  motive,  the  only  one  which  his  range  of  emotions 
and  experience  can  suggest  is  that  they  do  it  to  earn  a  living. 
Such  people,  he  tells  his  young  friend,  get  drowned.  With 
this,  contrast  the  line  in  which  Archilochus  (51)  bids  farewell 
to  life  on  the  sea.  Simonides  also  knows  that  men  fight  (and 
get  killed),  but  their  motives  for  doing  so  he  does  not  attempt 
even  to  conjecture.  But  when  he  returns  from  his  excursion 
into  these  unfamiliar  fields  of  human  activity,  and  plants  his 
foot  within  the  domestic  circle,  and  gets  on  the  subject  of  that 
domestic  grievance — woman — then  what  he  says  possesses,  if  not 
great  depth,  at  any  rate  great  length. 

The  roving,  fighting  life  of  Archilochus,  chequered  by  victory 
and  defeat,  by  the  adventures  of  the  gold-seeker,  by  the  passion 
and  disappointment  of  love,  by  the  carouses  of  the  camp,  and 
the  strife  of  politics,  afforded  a  rich  variety  of  material  to  the 
artist's  eye  and  the  poet's  mind  ;  but  the  dull  weary  round  of 
daily  work  could  afford  Simonides  no  stimulus  to  poetry.  It 
would,  in  fact,  seem  that  commerce  may  have — as  Freytag  shows 
in  his  novel  "  Soil  und  Haben " — its  romance,  but  its  poetry 
hardly.  The  result  of  the  conditions  under  which  Simonides 
produced  his  work  is  that  there  is  no  joy,  no  sense  of  beauty, 
no  play  of  fancy  in  it.  He  bids  no  farewell  to  the  beauty  of 
his  native  island.  That  life  may  be  beautiful  and  joyous  he 
does  not  seem  to  know.  He  knows,  indeed,  that  if  you  are 
married,  you  can  never  have  a  whole  day's  peace  (7.  99),  but 
beyond  this  negative  idea  he  cannot  lift  his  thoughts.  Of 
all  vigour  and  eager  activity  he  is  quite  innocent :  the  most 
energetic  demonstration  he  seems  to  contemplate  is  not  to 
dwell  on  one's  misfortunes  (i.  24).  The  public  for  whom 
Simonides  wrote  indicates  tlie  difference  between  him  and 
Archilochus.  The  latter  wrote  his  verses  to  be  sung  over  the 
■wine  to  his  boon-companions,  amongst  whom,  we  may  be  sure, 
were  to  be  found  all  the  wittiest  and  cleverest  men  of  the  place 
in  which  he  happened  to  be,  and  with  whom  his  reckless  strokes 
of  irony  and  satire,  and  his  finest  poetic  fancy,  would  find  ready 
appreciation.  Simonides'  verses,  as  we  have  said,  are  advice  to 
a  young  man. 

Touching  the  question  of  how  much  truth  there  is  in  Simon- 
ides' views  on  the  women  of  his  time :  in  view  of  the  resem- 
blance there  is  between  him  and  Hesiod,  both  in  the  narrow. 


120  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

carking  sjnrit  of  their  verse  and  in  their  unfavourable  esti 
mate  of  women,  we  might  at  first  be  inclined  to  think  that 
Simonides  was  not  drawing  on  his  own  observation,  but  was 
simply  working  out  in  a  spirit  of  literary  conventionality  and 
tradition  a  theme  which  he  had  borrowed  from  his  epic  prede- 
cessor. But  towards  the  end  of  the  fragment  we  find  a  couple 
of  verses  (112,  113) — "Every  man  praises  his  own  wife  and 
depreciates  his  neighbour's ;  but  we  are  all  in  the  same  plight 
without  knowing  it " — which  seem  to  show  that,  when  Simon- 
ides and  his  friends  met  together  for  the  recreation  of  quiet 
conversation,  their  wives  were  a  frequent  topic,  and  that  Simon- 
ides in  his  verses  is  but  giving  expression  to  the  views  of  the 
honest  burghers  of  Amorgos.  The  last  twenty  verses,  too,  of 
the  fragment,  when  the  author  has  conscientiously  discharged 
the  task  of  labelling  all  the  ten  classes  of  women,  and  speaks 
with  that  burden  off  his  mind,  positively  rise  to  a  modified 
warmth  of  feeling  which  in  Simonides  must  be  taken  to  repre- 
sent the  fire  of  conviction.  He  even,  when  hinting  at  a  scandal, 
ventures  on  an  audacious  aposiopesis,  which  the  sympathetic 
reader  at  once  understands  to  have  been  originally  accompanied 
by  a  solemn  motion  of  Simonides'  head  conveying  much  mean- 
ing. We  may  then  regard  what  Simonides  says  on  this  subject 
as  not  a  mere  literary  exercise,  but  as  the  result  of  his  observation 
and  experience  ;  and  we  have  to  estimate  it.  In  the  first  place, 
we  see  from  his  other  fragment  (i),  addressed  probably  to  his 
son,  that  he  took  a  gloomy  view  of  life.  He  saw  trouble  every- 
where and  no  remedy  for  trouble.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that 
when,  out  of  the  ten  classes  into  which  he  divides  women,  he 
only  admits  one — the  women  to  whom  the  qualities  of  the  bee 
have  been  assigned  by  the  gods — to  be  good,  he  is  colouring  his 
observations  with  the  same  subjective  and  gloomy  view  wliich 
in  the  other  fragment  permits  him  to  see  nothing  but  miserable 
ends  to  human  lives,  and  in  the  elegy,  which  is  probably  by 
him,  and  not  by  the  other  Simonides,  permits  him  to  see  nothing 
in  life  but  death.  His  condemnation  of  the  women  of  his  time 
contains  then  some  falsity  :  how  much  truth  it  contains  we  cannot 
say.  What  we  learn  from  Archilochus  makes  it  improbable  that 
the  custom — borrowed  by  the  louiaus  from  the  East — whicli 
certainly  prevailed  later,  of  shutting  women  up,  was  dominant 
at  this  time ;  and  all  we  are  in  a  position  to  say  is,  that  if  it 
was,  there  was  probably  a  considerable  amount  of  truth  in  his 
diatribe.  One  other  reflection  we  have  to  make :  the  hetsera, 
,.  we  learn  from  Archilochus,  had  already  made  her  appearance; 
X^  and  it  is  when  liaisons  witli  such  women  are  frequent  among 
"0  husbands  that  in  literature  we  find  complaints  about  wives. 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MEUC.  I  2  I 

There  reitJiin  three  writers  of  elegiacs  for  us  to  mention,  of 
whom  one  was  a  poet :  Tyrtaeus,  Mimnermus,  and  Solon.  The 
fragments  of  Tyrtaeus  are,  in  accordance  with  the  legend  which 
represents  him  as  inspiring  the  Spartans  with  courage,  warlike 
in  character.  As  poetry,  they  are  but  "  the  hoarse  monotony  of 
Terse  lowered  to  the  level  of  a  Spartan  understanding."  Their 
effect  on  the  Spartans,  however,  was  great  During  a  campaign 
his  elegies  were  sung  in  camp  after  the  evening  meal.  His 
Embateria  or  March-songs  were  sung  before  and  during  the 
battle ;  and  as  the  custom  was  handed  down  from  generation 
to  generation  of  singing  them  before  the  king's  tent,  they 
became  something  in  the  nature  of  a  national  hymn,  to  which 
they  are  the  only  approach  in  Greek  literature.  Mimnermus 
of  Colophon  (or  Smyrna)  was  indeed  a  poet,  and  the  scanty 
remains  of  his  elegies  make  us  regret  what  we  have  lost  of  him. 
Solon  wrote  in  verse  because  prose  was  not  yet  invented,  and 
his  fragments,  valuable  as  they  are  to  the  historian,  have  little 
interest  for  the  student  of  literature. 


CHAPTER  IL 

LTBIO  POETRY  :   MELia 

Melic,  the  third  division  of  lyric  poetry,  derives  its  name 
from  the  Greek  word  melos,  which  originally  means  a  member 
or  part,  then  a  strophe  or  part  of  a  poem,  and  then  verse  sung 
to  music.  Melic  poetry  was  composed  in  strophes,  and  it  was 
also  always  sung  to  music  ;  so  that  it  is  uncertain  whether  the 
term  is  derived  from  the  second  or  the  third  meaning  of  the 
■word  melos.  It  is  an  objection  to  deriving  it  from  the  second 
meaning  that  nomes,  which  are  certainly  melic,  are  not  writ- 
ken  in  strophes  ;  on  the  other  hand,  although  melic  poetry  was 
always  accompanied  by  music,  so  too — in  the  creative  period 
of  Greek  literature — were  the  other  divisions  of  lyric  poetry, 
elegiac  and  iambic.  It  is,  however,  clear  that  music  took 
a  much  more  prominent  part  in  melic  than  in  the  other  two 
kinds  of  lyric  poetry.  Elegies  and  iambics  were  probably  not 
always  sung,  but  mostly  recited  ;  and  were  not  accompanied  by 
music  throughout,  but  prefaced  and  followed  by  a  prelude  and 
symphony ;  and  probably  in  the  pauses  a  few  notes  were 
sounded.     On  the  other  hand,  the  various  metres  in  melic  pos- 


122  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

eessed  much  greater  flexibility  than  do  elegiacs  or  iambics,  and 
are  thereby  much  more  fitted  to  be  set  to  music. 
/  Melic  poetry  falls  into  two  classes,  according  as  it  was  sung 

^  by  a  chorus  or  by  one  person.  It  must  not,  however,  be  in- 
(  ferred  from  this  that  the  difference  between  the  two  kinds  of 
melic  was  merely  that  between  a  chorus  and  a  solo — a  differ- 
ence which  in  Greek  music  would  not  be  very  great,  since  the 
only  exception  to  the  Greek  custom  of  a  chorus  singing  in  uni- 
son was  singing  in  diapason.  A  chorus  implies  organisation ; 
and  the  organisation  in  Greece  was  public ;  consequently  the 
objects  for  which  choruses  were  organised  were  public  or 
national,  that  is  to  say,  they  were  acts  of  public  worship,  thanks- 
givings to  the  gods,  prayers  to  avert  evil,  or  hymns  of  praise 
or  celebration.  The  song,  on  the  other  hand,  which  is  sung  by 
a  single  person  needs  no  such  organisation,  and  is  dependent  on 
no  such  conditions,  but  belongs  to  private  life,  and  is  the  ready 
expression  of  the  individual's  joy  or  sorrow.  Thus,  the  chorus 
is  public  and  religious,  and  the  song  is  private  and  expressive 
of  every  emotion  other  than  that  of  worship.  Further,  as 
elegiac  and  iambic  poetry  were  the  work  of  the  Ionic  race,  so 
chorus  was  the  work  of  the  Dorian,  song  of  the  ^olian  race. 
But  here  a  qualification  becomes  necessary.  Although  ^olian 
poetry  was  distinctively  individual  both  in  subject,  treatment, 
and  delivery,  yet,  as  the  individual,  even  in  his  private  capacity, 
at  times  comes  into  relation  with  the  public,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  marriage  ceremony  or  the  funeral  dirge,  -^olian  poetry  neces- 
sarily becomes  choral  and  religious  at  times,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  epithalamion,  hymenseus,  and  threnos  or  dirge.  So,  too, 
the  public  in  its  collective  capacity  sometimes  interests  itself  in 
the  individual,  when,  for  instance,  he  has  rendered  services  to 
the  state  and  is  praised  for  them,  or  has  conferred  honour  on 
his  town  by  a  victory  in  the  national  games ;  and  thus  Dorian 
- 1 1^-  L-'  poetry,  in  the  case  of  encomia  and  epinikia,  without  ceasing  to 
X  0^  be  choral,  occasionally  passes  beyond  the  sphere  of  religion  and 
assumes  a  private  character.  Another  difi"erence  between  Dorian 
and  iEolian  melic  is  in  their  metrical  structure.  The  former, 
as  being  choral,  deliberately  organised,  publicly  performed,  and 
more  formal,  is  composed  of  larger  and  more  elaborate  strophes 
than  is  ^Eolian  poetry,  and,  in  addition  to  strophe  and  anti- 
strophe  has  an  epode,  which  .^olian  has  not.  The  epode  ia 
directly  connected  with  the  movements  of  the  chorus ;  for  the 
chorus  whilst  singing  the  strophe  moved  round  the  altar  to  the 
right,  whilst  singing  the  antistrophe  to  the  left,  and  then  whilst 
standing  in  front  of  the  altar  the   epode.     Mo\iaxi  songs,  not 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC.  123 

being  acts  of  worship,  involved  no  such  movement  and  had  no 
epode.  Finally,  we  may  notice  that  a  further  consequence  of 
the  religious  character  of  Dorian  and  choral  lyric  is  that  praise 
of  the  gods  naturally  led  the  poet  to  relate  the  works  of  the 
gods,  and  thus  choral  lyric  naturally  has  an  epic  element  in  it  of 
a  narrative  and  objective  character.  So,  too,  it  is  a  consequenca 
of  the  personal  character  of  iEolian  song  that  the  poet  did  not 
confine  himself  to  portraying  his  own  feelings  and  experiences, 
but  frequently  threw  himself  into  the  position  of  others,  and 
gave  poetical  form  to  the  emotions  which  a  certain  imagined 
situation  would  give  rise  to.  To  take  a  modern  illustration, 
the  lyric  poet  may  either  body  forth  his  own  feelings,  as  Shelley 
did  in  the  "  Stanzas  on  Dejection,  written  near  Naples,"  or  he 
may  project  himself  into  the  position  and  sing  the  lament  of  a 
woman  deserted  and  betrayed,  as  does  the  author  of  "  0  waly, 
waly,  up  the  bank." 

In  this  respect,  as  in  others,  we  see  the  connection  of  lyric 
song  with  the  songs  of  the  people  out  of  which  it  originated — a 
connection  which  again  may  be  illustrated  by  a  modern  instance, 
for  in  several  of  Burns'  lyrics  one  verse  is  traditional,  while  the 
remainder  is  the  work  of  Burns  in  the  spirit  of  the  original. 

Of  the  elements  out  of  which  melic  originated,  the  hymns, 
the  dirges,  the  wedding-songs,  of  which  we  get  some  glimpses 
in  Homer,  the  litanies,  so  to  speak,  of  which  we  get  some 
notion  by  a  comparison  of  the  Saliaric  hymns  at  Rome,  and 
the  songs  of  the  people,  of  which  a  few  fragments,  of  various 
dates,  have  survived — we  have  said  something  already  in  treating 
of  the  origin  of  lyric  poetry  in  general.  The  history  of  melic 
begins  for  us  with  Terpander,  and,  so  far  as  we  shall  treat  of  it, 
that  is,  in  the  creative  period  of  Greek  literature,  it  falls  into 
four  periods.  The  first  period,  which  began  with  Terpander 
and  lasted  for  about  a  century,  may  be  called  the  Spartan 
period,  for  it  was  in  Sparta  that  during  this  time  melic  was  pre- 
eminently cultivated.  This  period  was  marked  by  the  musical 
reforms  of  Terpander,  the  innovations  of  Clonas  and  Thaleta? 
and  the  genius  of  Alcman.  In  the  second  period  the  scene 
shifts  from  Sparta  to  Lesbos  and  to  Sicily ;  and  to  the  change 
in  area  there  corresponds  a  difference  in  the  character  of  melic, 
foi  it  was  in  Lesbos  and  in  Sicily  that  the  songs  of  the  people 
were  developed  into  lyric  song ;  and  with  this  branch  of  lyric 
poetry  the  great  names  of  Alcseus  and  Sappho  are  associated.  In 
this  period  also  flourished  Stesichorus,  who,  in  the  quality  of 
his  genius  and  the  nature  of  his  art,  was  the  forerunner  of 
Simonides  and  Pindar*    In  the  third  period  we  leave  the  homei 


124  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

of  the  people  for  the  courts  of  tyrants,  and  return  from  song  tc 
chorus.  This  was  the  period  of  Simonides  and  of  Anacreon, 
though  not  of  the  works  which  commonly  pass  under  the  name 
of  Anacreon.  The  fourth  was  again  a  period  of  choral  lyric, 
but  it  had  ceased  to  be  local,  and  in  the  hands  of  Pindar  and 
Bacchylides  became  universal.  In  this  period,  too,  the  dithy- 
ramb reached  its  greatest  importance. 

The  part  which  Sparta  during  the  first  period  played  in  the 
development  of  melic  is  remarkable  and  instructive.  It  is  re- 
markable because,  although  it  was  in  Sparta  that  melic  grew, 
scarcely  any  of  the  melic  poets  were  Spartans.  It  is  instructive 
because  it  shows  both  how  important  is  the  function  of  the 
public  in  the  history  of  art,  and  how  dependent  the  growth  of 
poetry,  and  of  literature  generally,  is  on  non-poetical  and  non- 
literary  conditions.  If  Sparta  was  the  home  and  not  the  mother 
of  lyric  poets  at  this  time — if  she  produced  no  genius,  but  sup- 
plied the  conditions  necessary  for  its  growth,  it  was  because 
there  existed  in  Sparta  a  sympathetic  public,  which  by  its 
education  was  capable  of  furnishing  the  ready  and  appreciative 
welcome  which  is  the  best  atmosphere  for  the  growth  of  art, 
and  the  best  stimulus  on  the  artist  to  excel  himself.  In  the 
next  place,  it  is  no  casual  coincidence  that  the  time  when  the 
greatest  poets  of  the  age  invariably  found  their  way  to  Sparta, 
as  did  Terpander  from  Lesbos,  Clonas  from  Thebes,  and  Thaletaa 
from  Crete,  was  precisely  the  time  when,  in  power  and  reputa- 
tion, Sparta  was  the  foremost  state,  without  a  rival  in  Greece. 
Doubtless  each  poet  had  an  appreciative  public  in  his  native 
city,  but  the  greatness  of  Sparta  offered  him  the  same  superior 
field  for  achieving  fame  as  that  Athens  gave  later,  and  as  at 
the  present  day  Paris  and  London  present  to  the  provincials  of 
France  and  England. 

With  the  musical  reforms  of  Terpander — the  extension  of  the 
tetrachord  of  tlie  cithara  into  an  incomplete  octave  ^ — we  shall 
not  deal.  We  have  to  speak  of  him  as  a  poet.  Unfortunately, 
the  few  and  insignificant  fragments  which  we  possess  of  his 
poetry  aff"ord  us  no  means  whatever  of  estimating  his  quality 
as  a  poet  or  his  method.  His  place  in  the  history  of  lyric 
poetry  has  to  be  inferred  mainly  from  the  not  always  satisfac- 
tory account  given  of  him  by  Proclus.  The  species  of  reli- 
gious lyric  to  which  Terpander's  compositions  belonged  was  the 
nome.      Of  the  meaning   of   this  word  no  more  satisfactory 

1  These  reforms  of  Terpander  constitute  what  was  technically  called 
i)  irpwTi]  Kara.(jTaai%  tQiv  irepl  rijv  ftovaiK'^v.  The  Seirripa  KardaraaiS  Tuf 
V.  T.  /*.  was  the  work  of  Thaletas  of  Crete  and  his  BchooL 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC.  12  5 

account  can  be  given  than  that  it  is  the  Greek  word  nomas, 
which  means  "law,"  and  that  this  kind  of  poetry  was  called 
Nomos  because,  as  opposed  to  other  kinds  of  which  the  shape 
was  determined  by  the  poet,  it  was  subject  to  certain  definite 
laws.  Thus  before  Terpander  the  nome  was  regularly  com- 
posed of  four  parts,  and  the  law  of  its  composition  was  that  the 
main  body  of  the  hymn  should  be  preceded  by  an  introduction, 
which  must  consist  of  two  parts,  and  should  be  followed  by  a 
conclusion.  Terpander  developed  this  division  of  the  nome, 
and  divided  the  conclusion  and  the  two  introductory  parts 
again  into  each  two  subdivisions,  thus  making  the  nome  to 
consist  of  seven  parts. ^^  So  much  for  the  form  of  the  nome; 
we  have  next  to  speak  of  its  character,  contents,  and  the  way 
in  which  it  was  executed.  In  character  it  was  religious,  and 
thus  resembled  hymns  and  pseans  ;  but  in  its  contents  it  differed 
from  the  paean,  because  it  was  not  sung  solely  in  honour  of 
Apollo,  but  miglit  be  dedicated  to  any  of  the  gods,  and  origi- 
nally was  used  in  the  worship  of  the  nether  gods  as  well  as  of 
Apollo.  In  content  it  further  differed  from  the  paean,  becaust 
the  paean  was  the  form  in  which  either  thanksgivings  for  victory 
were  offered  to  Apollo  or  prayers  were  made  to  him  to  avert 
pestilence,  while  the  nome  rather  celebrated  the  attributes,  the 
might,  and  the  majesty  of  the  god  whom  it  honoured.  In  the 
way  in  which  it  was  executed  it  differed  from  all  other  religious 
lyrics,  because  it  was  not  accompanied  by  dancing,  and  because 
it  was  not  choral,  but  was  sung  as  a  solo ;  and  from  this  differ- 
ence flows  another  mark  which  distinguislies  the  nome  from 
other  religious  lyrics,  viz.,  that  it  was  not  written  in  strophes. 
Further,  until  the  time  of  Clonas,  the  musical  instrument  which 
accompanied  the  nome  was  the  cithara. 

According  to  the  records  kept  at  Delphi,  Terpander  won  the 
prize  with  his  nomes  in  one  of  the  musical  contests  there.  This 
would  seem  to  point  to  the  cultivation  at  Delphi  of  such  reli- 
gious lyric  as  existed  at  the  time,  and  in  this,  as  Terpander  did 
not  invent  but  developed  the  nome  and  gave  it  a  place  in  lite- 
rature, there  is  nothing  improbable.  But  the  records,  when 
relating  to  events  of  such  great  antiquity,  are  reasonably  open 

1  The  names  of  the  four  original  divisions  were  :  dpxa,  KaraTpoird,  6n(f>a\6t 
and  cr<f>payis  ;  of  Terpander's  seven  divisions  :  dpxd,  /lerapxd,  KararpoTrd, 
fifTaKaTarpoTrd,  6pi,<pa\6s,  acppiyh,  iTriXoyos.  The  main  body  of  the  hymn 
was,  as  the  word  implies,  the  6fj.<pa\6s.  The  a(ppayis  was  the  "seal"  which 
stamped  the  conclusion.  To  the  "seal "  Terpander  added  the  epilogue;  to 
the  dpxd  the  nfrapxd,  and  to  the  Kararpovd  the  fieTaKararpowi.  S«« 
PoUux,  iv.  66. 


126         HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

to  doubt.  From  Delphi  Terpander  is  said  to  have  been  sent 
by  the  oracle  to  Sparta.  There  he  instituted  the  celebrated 
festival  of  the  Carnea  in  honour  of  Apollo,  and  in  the  musical 
contests  which  were  held  regularly  ever  afterwards  at  the  festi- 
val, the  prize  was  for  long  carried  oflf  by  the  school  of  Terpander, 
the  most  famous  member  of  which  was  Kapion.^ 

The  innovation  which  Clonas  of  Thebes  made  in  melic  was 
to  compose  nomes  designed,  not  for  a  cithara,  but  a  flute  accom- 
paniment. In  this  he  was  followed  by  Polymnestus  of  Colo- 
phon, and  Sakadas  of  Argos,  and  Echembrotus  of  Arcadia.  As 
we  possess  not  even  a  fragment  by  any  one  of  these  composers 
of  nomes  (except  a  dedication  on  an  offering  by  Echembrotus), 
we  need  not  say  more  of  them. 

The  development  of  the  paean  is  ascribed  to  Thaletas  of 
Crete.  Of  his  works  we  possess  no  fragment,  and  know 
nothing ;  but  he  seems  to  have  exercised  a  decisive  influence 
on  the  course  of  melic,  for,  after  his  time  nomes  gave  way  to 
the  paean,  solo  to  chorus,  and  the  cithara  to  the  flute.  It  is 
interesting  to  note,  too,  that  his  connection  with  Sparta  was 
set  down  to  the  action  of  the  oracle  of  Delphi,  as  was  also  that 
of  Terpander  and  of  Tyrtseus.  Whatever  may  be  the  historical 
value  of  the  incidents  with  which  this  connection  is  clothed  in 
the  case  of  these  three  important  early  lyric  poets,  the  fact  that 
they  were  said  to  have  been  sent  by  the  oracle  to  Sparta  shows  the 
closeness  of  the  relations  between  Delphi  and  Sparta,  and  that 
lyric  poetry  was  associated  with  Delphi.  The  new  path  marked 
out  for  melic  by  Thaletas  was  followed  by  Xenodamos,  who 
brought  from  Crete  the  hyporcheme,  a  species  of  melic  in  which 
the  mimetic  dancing  was  the  most  important  element,  and  by 
Xenocritus,  who  took  as  the  subject  of  his  poems  the  adventures, 
not  of  the  gods,  but  of  heroes,  thus  paving  the  way  for  the 
dithyramb. 

In  Alcman  we  at  last  come  to  a  poet  of  whom,  from  his  frag- 
ments, few  and  mutilated  as  they  are,  we  can  form  at  least 
some  idea  for  ourselves.  His  date  is  uncertain,  and  of  his  life 
we  only  know  two  things — that  his  poetry  was  performed  and 
composed  by  him  in  Sparta — and  that  he  came  from  Sardis. 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  said,  indeed,  that  Alcman  was  a 
Spartan  by  birth ;  but  Stephanus  of  Byzantium  quotes  some 

^  One  of  the  eif^lit  nomes  which  Terpander  was  said  to  have  composed  wa« 
called  Kapion,  after  this  favourite  pupil.  The  others  are  said  to  have  been 
called  Al6\ios  and  "Bolwtlos,  after  the  musical  scales  or  keys  of  those  names; 
OpOtos  and  Tyooxa'os,  after  the  metres,  and  'Otw,  Terpaoldioi,  Tepirdvdoua^ 
for  reason!  which  cauuot  be  diaoovered. 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC.  12/ 

verses  from  Alcman  which  explicitly  state  that  he  came  from 
lofty  Sardis.  "Whether  he  was  a  slave,  as  Suidas,  followinr; 
Crates,  affirms,  and  Dionysius  denies,  or  a  freeman ;  whether 
he  was  a  Lydian  or  a  Greek,  and  how  he  came  from  Sardis  to 
Sparta,  whether  as  a  slave,  or  as  an  artist  attracted  by  the 
chance  of  fame  in  Sparta  ;  and  at  what  age,  whether  as  a  child  or 
as  a  man — these  are  all  questions  which  cannot  be  satisfactorily 
settled.  It  seems  improbable  that,  if  he  were  a  slave,  he  w«uld 
ever  have  been  permitted  to  obtain  the  rights  of  citizenship  ic 
Sparta,  and  take  such  an  important  part  in  the  direction  ol 
public  worship.  About  his  nationality  his  name  proves  little, 
for  though  it  is  Greek,  it  may  not  have  been  his  original 
name ;  nor  do  the  two  alternative  names  which  Suidas  gives  his 
father,  though  both  are  Greek,  prove  more  ;  for  neither  may  be 
genuine.  Finally,  whether  he  left  Sardis  before  he  was  old 
enough  to  have  been  materially  influenced  by  Lydian  art,  or  im- 
ported Lydian  tendencies  into  Sparta,  is  a  question  to  which 
the  fragments  we  possess  are  insufficient  to  give  an  answer. 

Turning  from  these  questions,  let  us  try  to  see  what  were 
his  contributions  to  melic,  and  why  the  Alexandrine  critics 
regarded  him  as  a  classic,  and  placed  him  in  their  canon  of  the 
nine  great  lyric  poets.  The  direction  in  which  Alcman  made 
his  advance,  and  the  nature  of  his  work,  were  determined  by 
the  previous  history  of  melic  and  the  existing  conditions  in 
Sparta.  That  is  to  say,  Alcman  found  melic  exclusively  de- 
voted to  religious  worship  in  Sparta,  and  accordingly  it  was  to 
the  lyric  of  worship  that  he  directed  his  genius.  He  found 
that  Thaletas  had  diverted  the  current  of  lyric  from  nomes  in 
solo  to  worship  in  chorus,  and  he  followed  out  the  channel  thus 
opened,  composing  paeans,  hymns,  wedding-songs,  and  prosodia 
or  processional  hymns.  But  his  genius  was  too  powerful  to  be 
confined  to  merely  working  out  tendencies  which  he  found 
already  existing.  Although  he  started  from  and  developed  the 
religious  and  choral  elements  of  lyric,  he  confined  himself  to 
neither.  It  is  the  function  of  lyric  to  give  poetic  form  to  aU 
the  emotions,  not  to  that  of  worship  only,"and  it  is  the  essence 
of  lyric  to  give  more  prominence  to  the  subjectivity  and  the 
personality  of  the  poet  than  choral  poetry,  at  any  rate  in  its 
earlier  stages,  permitted.  As  a  true  lyric  poet,  then,  Alcmau 
felt  the  need  to  teach  in  song  other  feelings  than  the  religious, 
and  to  set  forth  his  own  experiences  with  more  directness  than 
the  impersonal  nature  of  choral  poetry,  as  it  then  existed,  was 
compatible  with.  At  the  same  time  these  tendencies  were  con- 
ditioned by  the  character  of  his  public,  which,  being  Spartan, 


128  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

demanded  religious  and  choral  poetry.  Alcman  had,  therefore, 
to  seek  for  some  variety  of  Dorian  melic,  which  should  satisfy 
Spartan  taste  and  yet  admit  of  being  developed  into  an  instru- 
ment for  conveying  his  feelings  and  his  ovm  views  on  life  as  his 
own.  This  he  found  in  the  Parthenia,  or  girls'  choruses,  which 
liad  long  existed  in  Sparta.  Such  choruses,  sung  and  danced 
by  girls,  imply  that  women  were  allowed  to  freely  appear  in 
public,  and  that  they  received  some  education  in  music  and 
dancing.  It  is,  therefore,  interesting  to  note  that  the  history 
of  the  condition  of  Greek  women  receives  some  light  from  the 
history  of  these  Parthenia.  In  the  oldest  times  they  were  pro- 
bably common  to  all  the  Greeks,  for  dances  of  this  kind  are 
mentioned  in  Homer  and  the  Homeric  hymns.  ^  For  some 
time  they  continued  to  be  usual,  not  only  among  the  Dorians 
and  iEolians,  but  also  among  the  lonians.  Eventually,  how- 
ever, the  Athenian  practice  of  secluding  women,  of  allowing 
them  to  leave  the  house  only  for  religious  worship,  and  of 
teaching  them  nothing  but  the  most  elementary  household 
duties,  caused  the  Parthenia  to  decay  among  the  Athenians.  In 
Sparta,  however,  where  the  state  took  the  education  of  girls 
into  its  own  hands  with  as  much  care  as  that  of  boys,  and 
where  women  occupied  a  place  of  some  independence  by  the 
side  of  man,  the  Parthenia  long  continued  to  flourish. 

Arion  is  not  represented  by  a  single  fragment,  for  the  hymn 
of  thanksgiving  commemorating  his  miraculous  escape  on  the 
back  of  a  dolphin  from  death  at  the  hands  of  a  treacherous  crew, 
which  ^lian  (H.  A.  xii.  45)  quotes  as  the  work  of  Arion,  is 
generally  regarded  now  as  the  work  of  a  later  hand.  It  is  the 
more  to  be  regretted  that  we  should  possess  nothing  of  his, 
because  he  not  only  wrote  hexameters  (to  the  number  of  2000) 
and  nomes,  but  first  gave  a  place  in  literature  to  the  dithyramb, 
which  was  the  seed  out  of  which  the  drama  was  to  grow  ;  and 
the  early  history  of  the  dithyramb  is  a  matter  of  some  obscurity. 
The  worship  of  Dionysus  was  probably  of  great  antiquity  in 
Greece,  and  may  reasonably  be  supposed  to  date  from  before 
the  composition  of  the  Homeric  hymn  to  Dionysus.  The  power 
of  wine  had  excited  by  its  mystery  the  wonder  of  man  in 
Aryan  times,  for  it  is  celebrated  in  the  Yedas,  where  the  virtues 
of  soma  are  the  marvel  of  the  poet.  But  as  the  worship  of 
Dionysus  was  a  different  thing  from  the  praise  of  soma,  so  the 
dithyramb   was  not  the  same  thing  as  the    early  hymns  to 

'  Iliad,  xvi.  182 ;  Hymns,  xxx.  14.  The  dance  of  Artemis  and  her  train. 
Hymns,  xxvii.  15,  was  probably  suggested  by  the  practice  of  ordinary  life, 
as  wa«  also  Hymns,  v.  5. 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC.  12$ 

Dionysus.  Tlie  proper,  and  presumably  the  original,  subject  of 
th<5  dithyramb  was  the  birth  of  Dionysus,  as  we  learn  from 
Plato  {Lmvs,  iii.  700),  though  eventually  any  portion  of  his 
history  came  to  be  matter  for  dithyrambic  poets.  But  it  was 
less  in  the  matter  than  in  the  manner  of  delivery  that  the 
dithyramb  differed  from  the  hymns.  The  dithyramb  was 
orgiastic,  and  this,  together  with  the  name  (for  which  no 
Greek  etymology  can  be  found),  seems  to  point  to  a  foreign 
origin.  This  view  of  the  nature  and  origin  of  the  dithyramb 
is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  it  was  in  Corinth,  which  en- 
couraged orgiastic  rites  and  was  specially  connected  with  the  wor- 
ship of  Cotyto,  that  the  dithyramb  first  found  a  home  in  Greece ; 
and  that  it  was  from  Methymna  in  Lesbos,  where  phallic  wor- 
ship flourished,  that  Arion  brought  the  dithyramb  to  Corinth. 

The  first  mention  of  the  dithyramb  is  in  a  time  before 
Arion,  in  a  fragment  (77B)  of  Archilochus,  who  says  that  he 
knows  how,  when  he  is  smitten  by  wine  as  by  a  thunderbolt,  to 
lead  ofi"  the  dithyramb.  From  this  fragment,  as  well  as  from 
the  general  course  of  melic  poetry,  it  probably  follows  that  the 
dithyramb  was,  until  the  time  of  Arion  (who  was  a  contem- 
porary of  Periander,  B.C.  628-585),  sung  not  in  chorus,  but  in 
monody,  as  was  the  case  with  other  melic  poetry  until  Tha- 
letas,  and  still  more  effectively  Alcman,  brought  choral  poetry 
into  the  position  of  imjDortance  which  nomes  originally  occu- 
pied. At  any  rate,  the  singing  of  the  dithyramb  by  an  organised 
and  trained  chorus  (as  opposed  to  the  extempore  singing  of  a 
refrain,  as  in  the  case  of  the  earliest  peeans  and  wedding-songs), 
was  due  to  Arion.  The  position  of  the  chorus  in  the  dithy- 
ramb, too,  was  new,  and  was  due  to  Arion.  Instead  of  being 
drawn  up  in  a  rectangular  body,  as  was  the  case  with  all 
Dorian  choruses,  and  moving  from  right  to  left,  and  left  to 
right,  round  the  altar,  the  chorus  was  arranged  in  a  circle 
round  the  altar,  and  hence  was  called  a  Cyclic  chorus.  Another 
innovation  made  by  Arion  was  to  dress  the  chorus  as  satyrs ; 
the  choreutae,  or  members  of  the  chorus,  thus  came  to  be 
called  in  Greek  tragoi,  goats  or  satyrs,  and  their  song  was 
the  goat-  or  satyr-song,  trag-oedia.  This,  and  not  the  offering  of 
a  goat  as  a  prize,  it  is  which  is  the  origin  of  the  word  *'  tragedy." 
The  number  of  choreutae  in  Arion's  time  is  not  known.  The 
first  mention  of  the  number  fifty  is  later,  and  occurs  in  a  frag- 
ment of  Simonides  (147)  ;  whether  this  was  the  number  of 
Arion's  chorus  there  is  nothing  to  show.  A  further  innova- 
tion ascribed  to  Arion  is,  that  he  gave  a  "  tragic  turn  "  ^  to  the 
^  Toa7t/ic6s  rpdvos, — Hesychius. 


130  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

dithyramb,  and  what  this  means  is  uncertain.  It  has  been  sup* 
posed  to  mean  that  Arion  did  not  confine  himself  to  the  birth 
or  the  adventures  of  Dionysus  for  the  subject  of  his  dithyrambs, 
but  substituted  heroic  myths.^  But  probably  it  refers  to  the 
nature  of  the  dancing  with  which  the  dithyramb  was  accom- 
panied. This  was  more  lively  and  more  extravagant  than  in 
the  case  of  other  choral  poetry  ;  it  was  probably  highly  mimetic 
and,  as  danced  by  the  satyr- clad  choreutae,  dramatic 


CHAPTER  IIL 

MELIO   POETRY  :   ALGOUS  AND    SAPPHO. 

Whilst  the  lonians  had  been  developing  elegiac  and  iambio 
poetry,  and  whilst  in  Sparta  melic  poets,  attracted  from  all 
parts  of  the  Greek  world,  had  carried  nomes  as  far  as  the  simple 
nature  of  such  poetry  permitted,  and  then  had  begun  to  lay  the 
foundations  of  choral  poetry,  in  Lesbos  the  other  division  of 
melic  poetry,  which  consisted  of  odes,  individual  and  subjective 
in  character,  and  which  corresponded  rather  to  what  we  under- 
stand at  the  present  day  by  lyric  poetry,  was  being  quietly  but 
steadily  developed.  Of  the  stages  between  the  songs  of  the 
people  in  Lesbos  and  the  poetry  of  Alcaeus  absolutely  no  trace 
has  come  down  to  us ;  we  have  neither  a  word  nor  the  name  of 
a  single  poet.  It  is  indeed  only  inference,  but  it  is  a  necessary 
inference  from  the  developed  character  of  Alcaeus'  rhythm,  that 
such  stages  occurred. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.,  in  the  time  oi 
Alcaeus,  who  was  a  contemporary  of  Solon,  Lesbos  was  in  a  state 
of  political  convulsion,  the  shocks  of  which  threw  down  one 
form  of  government  after  another,  oligarcliical,  tyrannic,  and 
democratic,  until  the  wisdom  and  power  of  Pittacus,  the  Solon 
of  Lesbos,  secured  peace  for  his  country.  In  these  revolutions 
and  counter-revolutions  Alcaeus  took  an  eager  part.  Born  of  a 
noble  family,  and  reared  in  the  political  faith  of  his  fathers, 
Alcaeus  was  by  nature  and  by  education  an  ardent  partisan  of 
the  oligarchy,  which  in  his  earlier  years  ruled  without  fear  or 
check  in  Lesbos.  But  the  good  time  of  oligarchy  was  drawing 
to  an  end,  and  that  in  Lesbos  was  exploded  in  the  usual  way — 
from  within.     Finding  the  position  which  he  shared  in  common 

'  A  change  of  this  kind  wai  suppressed  at  Sioyon  by  Cleisthenes.  Hdft. 
T.67. 


LYEIC  POETRY  :    ALC^US  AND  SAPPHO.  1  3  I 

with  his  fellow-oligarchs  not  of  sufficient  freedom,  Melanchrua 
contrived  to  constitute  himself  tyrant ;  and  this  proceeding  led 
to  a  complication  of  revolutions,  tyrannicides,  exiles,  imprison- 
ments, usurpations,  conspiracies,  and  insurrections,  which  at  this 
distance  of  time  it  is  almost  impossible  to  disentangle.  Melan- 
chrus  was  eventually  assassinated,  but  the  oligarchy  was  not  to 
be  restored.  In  the  division,  however,  between  the  oligarchs 
and  the  people,  who  had  united  to  overthrow  the  tyranny,  but 
split  on  the  question  of  oligarchy  or  democracy,  another  oligarch, 
Myrsilus,  throwing  over  his  own  party,  forced  his  way  to  the 
tyranny.  Probably  at  this  time  Alcseus  and  his  brothers  were 
driven  into  exile ;  and  M'e  may  perhaps  measure  the  force  of 
this  political  eruption  by  the  distance  to  which,  and  the  divers 
directions  in  which,  these  exiles  were  ejected  ;  for  Alcseus  landed 
in  Egypt,  and  took  service  under  the  Pharaoh  Hofra,  while  his 
brother  Antimenidas  was  projected  east,  and  entered  the  army 
Df  Nebuchadnezzar.  Myrsilus  shared  the  fate  of  Melanchrus, 
and  was  assassinated,  and  after  this  a  popular  government  was 
established  by  Pittacus.  But  Alcaeus  was  impartially  opposed 
both  to  the  usurpations  of  tyrants  and  the  people's  encroach- 
ments on  the  rights  of  the  oligarchs,  and  he  made  war  both 
with  his  sword  and  his  verse  on  Pittacus  and  the  popular  govern- 
ment. The  insurrection  failed,  however,  and  Alcaeus  was  thrown 
into  prison.  There  he  implored  for  release  from  Pittacus,  whom 
he  had  despised  and  abused.  Pittacus  released  him  with  the 
comment,  "  To  forgive  is  better  than  to  take  vengeance."  After 
this  we  know  nothing  more  of  Alcaeus'  history. 

Alcaeus'  compositions  made  at  least  ten  books,  and  includefl 
hymns  to  the  gods,  as  well  as  the  odes  for  which  he  was  more 
famous.  The  latter  are  sometimes  divided  into  political  {stasio- 
tiJca),  drinking  {sholia),  and  love  {erotika)  songs ;  but  it  is  hard 
to  observe  this  division  of  classes,  for  the  wine  seems  to  have 
got  into  all  of  them,  and  they  were  probably  all  delivered  in  the 
same  way,  to  the  same  audience,  and  on  the  same  sort  of  occa- 
sion. That  is  to  say,  they  were  probably  sung  by  Alcaeus,  to  his 
own  accompaniment,  over  the  wine  to  his  political  and  personal 
friends.  Hence  his  songs,  when  they  are  something  more  than 
drinking-songs,  would  still  naturally  contain  allusions  to  wine, 
and  even  those  which  began  as  drinking-songs  might,  without 
any  inconsequence,  turn  to  love  or  politics.  The  fragments  of 
his  works  are  disappointing  reading,  and  this  is  not  because 
time  has,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  treated  Alcaeus  more  hardly 
than  other  lyric  poets  of  the  same  or  gi-eater  antiquity.  Rela- 
tively, indeed;  to  the  elegiac  poets,  Alcaeus  is  not  fortunate  in 


132  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

the  size  of  tlie  fragments  from  which  we  have  to  form  oar  opinion 
of  him,  and  we  can  assign  a  natiiral  reason  for  this  :  the  lines 
of  cleavage  are  not  the  same  in  elegiac  poetry  as  in  odes  of  a 
more  complex  metrical  formation.  A  large  proportion  of  the 
fragments  of  Alcseus  have  reached  us  embedded  in  the  works  of 
grammarians,  who  quote  Alcaeus  only  to  illustrate  a  metrical 
point  or  a  peculiarity  of  dialect ;  and  such  quotations,  usually 
short,  never  necessarily  contain  a  complete  thought.  Quotations 
from  the  elegiac  poets,  on  the  other  hand,  are  made  not  for  such 
purposes,  but  usually  for  the  sake  of  the  thought  contained  in 
them.  Hence  we  have  complete  elegies  by  Solon,  Tyrtaeus,  or 
Mimnermus,  but  only  fragments  of  Alcseus.  Still,  compared 
with  Archilochus  or  Alcman,  Alcaeus  is  well  represented ;  but 
whereas  in  the  little  that  survives  of  Alcman  there  are  to  be 
found  two  fragments  which  at  once  put  him  at  least  on  a  level 
with  his  reputation,  in  the  more  extensive  fragments  of  Alcseus 
there  is  nothing  which  is  worthy  of  the  great  name  that  Alcaeus 
enjoys. 

The  fragments  of  his  hymns  to  the  gods  contain  nothing 
which  is  above  poetical  commonplace ;  and  probably  the  hymns 
in  their  entirety  were  of  no  great  merit,  for  Alcaeus  was  not  by 
inclination  likely  to  excel  in,  nor  was  he  in  after-time  famous 
for,  religious  and  choral  lyric.  It  is  his  political  and  martial 
verse  which  antiquity  is  unanimous  in  extolling  as  constituting 
his  greatness  as  a  lyric  poet.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  (2.  8), 
Athenseus  (xiv.  627A),  Quintilian  (10.  i.  63),  and  the  epigram- 
matists in  the  Greek  Anthology,  all  select  his  stasiotika  as  his 
distinctive  excellence.  We  turn,  therefore,  with  interest  to  the 
fragments  of  these  odes,  and  find  that  fortunately  among  them 
are  some  of  the  most  considerable  and  famous  of  his  fragments. 
For  instance,  we  have  tie  original  of  Horace's  "  0  navis  !  refe- 
rent in  mare  te"  (C.  i.  14),  in  which,  under  the  metaphor  of  a 
ship,  the  distress  of  the  state  is  pictured  (18).  We  have,  again, 
the  original  of  Horace's  ''Nunc  est  bibendum,"  with  the  re- 
joicing over  the  murder  of  Myrsilus  (20).  And,  as  the  expres- 
sion of  Alcaeus'  martial  spirit,  we  have  a  description  (15)  of 
his  room  decorated  with  helmets  and  greaves  and  bucklers,  and 
all  the  appurtenances  of  war  ;  and  also  (33)  his  welcome  to  his 
brother,  who  had  returned  from  his  service  under  Nebuchad- 
nezzar with  a  beautiful  ivory-hilted  sword,  which  he  had  taken 
from  a  giant  whom  he  had  slain  in  fair  and  open  fight. 

All  these  fragments  are  good,  and  they  confirm  what  Diony- 
sius and  Quintilian  say,  that  he  is  not  diffuse,  and  that  his 
style  possesses  grandeur;  but  they  do  not  reach  the  level  oi 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ALCiEUS  AND  SAPPHO.  I  3  3 

the  highest  poetry.  Tlie  finest  is  the  metaplior  of  the  ship, 
with  the  waves  rising  against  it  on  all  sides,  and  its  sails  in 
rags.  Compared  with  the  diligent  but  lifeless  work  of  Horace's 
imitation,  the  Greek  has  the  merit  of  being  sketched  after 
nature ;  but  if  we  wish  to  see  the  difference  between  this  and 
the  best  poetry,  "to  know  the  change  and  feel  it,"  we  have 
only  to  compare  the  lines  in  which  Homer  ^  describes,  not  a 
storm — AlcEeus'  stanzas  are  not  very  stormy  ;  he  has  to  tell  us 
that  the  weather  is  bad — but  the  motion  of  a  ship.  Setting 
aside  other  differences,  in  the  one  case  we,  feel  that  we  are  on 
the  ship,  and  in  the  other  we  do  not.  In  the  description  of 
his  room,  too,  we  are  sensible  of  a  somewhat  similar  deficiency ; 
but  in  this  case  the  deficiency  is  in  the  spirit,  not  in  the  reality 
of  the  description.  As  a  picture  of  an  artistic  interior,  it  would 
rank  in  literary  merit  with  similar  work  in  Th^ophile  Gautier 
or  Balzac,  and  have  the  advantage  of  brevity.  "When,  how- 
ever, Athenseus  {I.  c.)  asks  us  to  admire  in  this  the  martial 
spirit  of  a  'man  who  was  more  than  warlike  enough,  our  atten- 
tion is  at  once  drawn  to  the  ditt'erence  in  spirit  between  these 
verses,  in  which  weapons  play  the  part  of  aesthetic  mural  decora- 
tions, and  those  in  which  Tyrtseus  describes  the  Spartan  warrior, 
with  teeth  set,  feet  firmly  planted  on  the  ground,  covered  by 
his  shield,  holding  his  burly  lance  in  his  hand,  learning  in 
battle  how  to  fight. 

Thus,  then,  not  only  do  the  fragments  which  we  happen  to 
possess  fail  to  bear  out  the  high  opinion  which  the  ancients 
held  of  the  stasiotika,  but  one  of  them  is  actually  a  passage 
which  Athenaeus  quotes  to  prove  his  opinion.  If  Athenaeus 
has  thus  misjudged  the  merit  of  Alcaeus,  it  becomes  worth 
while  to  examine  the  criticisms  of  Dionysius  and  Quintilian 
more  closely,  and  with  some  independence  of  judgment.  What 
Dionysius  singles  out  as  above  all  excellent  in  Alcaeus  is  the 
ethos  of  the  political  odes ;  and  Quintilian  explains  this  for  us 
when  he  praises  Alcaeus  for  attacking  tyrants.  This,  then,  waa 
the  ethos  of  the  political  odes — hatred  to  tyrants.  And  this  waa 
Alcaeus'  distinctive  excellence.  Liberty  is  a  subject  which  may 
inspire  the  highest  poetry,  as  it  does  in  the  lines — 

♦*  Two  voices  are  there  :  one  is  of  the  sea, 
One  of  the  mountains  ;  each  a  mighty  voice : 
In  both  irom  age  to  age  thou  didst  rejoice  ; 
They  were  thy  chosen  music — Liberty  1 " 

But  it  must  be  liberty  -whicli  fills  the  poet ;  and  when  we  set 

^  OdysB.  ii.  ad  fin. 


134  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Alcaeus,  with  his  "  Now  must  we  soak  !  now  must  a  man  pe^ 
force  be  made  to  drink,  since  Myrsilus  is  dead,"  by  the  side  of 
"Wordsworth's  "  Tliere  came  a  tyrant,  and  .  .  .  thou  fought'st 
against  him,"  we  not  only  see  that  the  stasiotika  failed  of  the 
highest  excellence  as  poetry,  but  we  also  feel  that  hatred  of 
tyrants  is  not,  as  Dionysius  and  Quintilian  seemed  to  think, 
the  same  thing  as  love  of  liberty.  Alcseus  fought  against  the 
tyranny  of  one,  but  for  the  tyranny  of  the  few. 

Leaving  the  fragments  of  the  political  odes,  we  find  among 
the  drinking-songs,  or  skolia,  two  pieces  of  much  greater  beauty, 
which  seem  to  show  that  Dionysius  and  Quintilian  ranked 
the  stasiotika  above  all  the  rest  of  Alcseus,  not  because  of  their 
poetical,  but  their  political  merit,  in  the  same  way  as  Alcaeus' 
popularity  at  Athens,  which  is  testified  to  by  Aristophanes, 
seems  to  have  attaclied  itself  to  the  political  odes  (for  it  is  a 
stasiotikon  which  he  quotes  in  the  JFasj^s,  1234),  and  to  have 
been  due  to  the  tyranno-phobia  from  which  the  democracy, 
according  to  Aristophanes,  suffered.^  The  two  fragments  which 
give  us  a  higher  opinion  of  Alcaeus  than  anything  in  the  poli- 
tical odes  are  a  winter-piece  (34)  and  a  summer-piece  (39). 
The  former  is  the  original  of  Horace's  "  Vides  ut  alta  stet  nive 
candidum  "  (C.  i.  9),  and  is  a  picture  of  the  time  "  when  icicles 
hang  by  the  wall,"  and  "  all  around  the  wind  doth  blow."  The 
latter  was  written — 

"  While  that  the  sun,  with  his  beams  hot, 
Scorched  the  fruits  in  vale  and  mountain." 

But  when  we  have  felt  the  beauty  of  these  two  fragments,  and 
recognise  the  brevity  and  the  grandeur  of  the  style,  we  are 
conscious  of  the  same  deficiency  as  in  the  other  fragments. 
Although  he  has  a  sympathy  with  and  a  love  for  nature,  the  poet 
is  not  absorbed  in  his  subject ;  as,  for  instance,  Alcman  in  his 
description  of  a  sleeping  landscape  :  he  is  thinking  of  something 
else — wine  and  women.  In  Shakespeare,  "  When  icicles  hang 
by  the  wall,"  and  "  "When  all  around  the  wind  doth  blow," 
"  Then  nightly  sings  the  staring  owl."  But  in  Alcseus,  when 
the  storm  blows  and  the  rivers  freeze,  or  when  the  fruits  are 
scorclied  and  the  grasshopper  sings,  then  Alcaeus  says,  "  Let  us 
drink."  It  is  perhaps,  however,  unfair  to  contrast  Alcaeus  with 
Shakespeare  or  any  modern  lyric  poet,  for  this  reason,  that  the 

^  It  is  significant  that,  as  soon  as  tyranno-phobia,  both  in  the  Athenians 
and  in  critics,  dies  out,  a  proper  appreciation  of  Alcaeus'  merit  as  a  poet 
begins  to  emerge.  It  is  Himerius  who  reveals  to  us  the  existence  of  an 
appreciation  of  Alcaeus'  sympathy  with  nature,  when  he  says  of  sume  ode 
that  the  birds  slug  iu  it  ag  you  would  expect  birds  to  sing  in  Alcasus. 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ALC-EUS  AND  SAPPHO.  I  3  5 

Greeks  did  not  raake  the  sharp  severance  between  man  and 
nature  that  we  do  in  modern  times.  The  Greeks  were  from 
two  to  three  thousand  years  nearer  than  we  to  the  time  of  those 
primitive  stories  in  which  the  hero  is  addressed  by  and  talks 
to  a  snake  or  a  bird  or  a  stream  or  a  rock  as  familiarly  as  to 
any  other  of  his  acquaintances.  In  Gri;ek  literature,  too,  the 
relations  of  man  and  nature  are  the  same  :  nature  is  always 
conceived  of  as  sympathising  with  the  sufferings  of  man  or 
ministering  to  his  joys.  Nature  was  still  the  mother  of  the 
Greek,  and  he  was  old  enough  to  sympathise  with  her,  and  to 
go  to  her  to  be  comforted  and  consoled,  but  not  old  enough  or 
self-conscious  enough  to  know  as  well  as  feel  that  he  loved  her. 
A  Greek  might  perhaps  have  felt,  but  could  not  have  said,  with 
SheUey— 

"  I  love  snow  and  all  the  forms 
Of  the  radiant  frost  ; 

I  love  waves,  and  winds,  and  storms, 
Everything  almost 

Which  is  Nature's,  and  may  be 

Untainted  by  man's  misery." 

Still  further  was  the  Greek  from  discovering  that  nature  is 
indifferent  to  man,  with  an  indifference  which  Burns  has  given 
expression  to — 

"  Ye  banks  and  braes  o'  bonnie  Doon, 
How  can  ye  bloom  sae  fresh  an'  fair  I 
How  can  ye  chant,  ye  little  birds, 
And  I  sae  weary,  fu'  o'  care  !  " 

It  was,  then,  characteristic  of  Greek  lyric,  and  not  a  peculiar  de- 
ficiency in  Alcaeus,  that  he  could  only  treat  nature  as  a  back- 
ground to  man,  could  not  work  with  his  eye  solely  on  nature  to 
the  exclusion  of  man,  as  Shelley  did  in  his  two  verses  beginning, 
"  A  widow  bird  sate  mourning  for  her  love."  But  within  the 
limits  between  which  Greek  thought  moved,  Alcaeus  does  not 
in  his  pictures  of  nature  attain  the  excellence  of  Alcman,  or  of 
iEschylus  in  the  Prometheus  Bomid,  or  Sophocles  in  the  Ajax. 
Of  the  love-songs  of  Alcaeus  nothing  remains  but  fragments, 
which  give  us  no  idea  of  their  worth  ;  and  the  names  of  the 
objects  of  his  affection,  e.g.,  Lycus,  show  that  these  odes  would 
not  have  been  acceptable  to  modem  ears.  Having  considered 
the  hymns,  the  stasiotika,  the  skolia,  and  the  erotika  of  Alcaeus, 
we  have  now  to  estimate  his  work  as  a  whole.  To  begin  with 
his  rhythms,  not  only  was  the  logaoedic  verse  which  bears  his 
name  his  invention,  and  still,  by  the  name  Alcaic,  testifies  to 
his  excellence  in  this  form  of  strophe,  but  sapphics  also  were 


136  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

the  product  of  his  genius.  The  fragment  which  descrihes  hij 
room  is  in  a  metre  peculiar  to  Alcaeus,  and  he  tried  many  other 
experiments  in  the  combination  of  metres.  In  the  next  place, 
the  qualities  of  his  style  are,  as  Dionysius  said,  and  as  even  we  at 
the  present  day  can  to  some  extent  see,  brevity  and  magnificence. 
Ilis  matter — except  in  the  hymns,  which  are  not  characteristic 
— is  personal,  and,  like  his  metre  and  his  style,  genuinely  lyria 
Occurring  in  the  period  of  growth  and  creation  in  the  history  of 
Greek  literature,  he  is  original  in  his  matter  as  in  his  metres ; 
and  this  gives  to  his  work  the  note  of  reality  which  we  miss  in 
Horace.  When  Alcseus  shows  us  the  ship  of  state  in  distress, 
he,  at  least,  pictures  himself  as  on  board  ;  but  to  the  Roman  ship 
of  state  Horace  in  his  ode  stands  in  the  attitude  of  an  apostro- 
phising spectator  on  shore.  The  difference  between  an  original 
and  an  adaptation  comes  out  even  more  strongly  in  the  ode, 
which  in  Alcseus  celebrates  the  assassination  of  Myrsilus,  and 
in  Horace  is  adapted  to  the  suicide  of  Cleopatra.  Alcaeus  had 
indeed  suffered  at  the  hands  of  Myrsilus,  had  been  perhaps 
exiled  by  him,  certainly  deprived  of  his  oligarchical  privileges. 
He,  therefore,  when  Myrsilus  was  killed,  could  sing,  "  Now 
must  we  drink,"  and  mean  it.  But  Cleopatra's  existence  had  not 
been,  as  Horace  would  imply,  a  crushing  weight  which  scarcely 
permitted  him  or  any  other  Roman  to  breathe  while  it  lasted. 
When,  therefore,  Horace — whose  digestion  was  a  source  of 
anxiety  to  him — says,  "  Now  must  we  drink,"  it  is  because  the 
word  of  command  has  been  uttered  by  Augustus. 

In  the  choice  of  his  subjects  Alcseus  is  limited.  He  found 
his  main  inspiration  in  good  wine  and  inferior  politics.  But 
if  his  range  is  narrow,  within  its  limits  he  shows  considerable 
variety  of  treatment.  Athenseus  remarked  that  there  was  no 
circumstance  or  occasion  which  Alcaeus  could  not  convert  into 
an  excuse  for  drinking  ;  and  summer  and  winter,  joy  and  sorrow, 
love  and  politics,  do  all  lead  to  the  bowl  with  him.  But  this 
fact  should  not  be  interpreted  to  moan  that  he  was  solely  de- 
voted to  the  worship  of  wine.  Unfortunately  this  was  not  the 
case,  or  his  drinking-songs  would  have  been  better.  He  never 
wrote  anything  so  thorough  as  the  lines  in  the  Cyclops  of 
Euripides — 

"  I  would  give 
All  that  the  Cyclops  feed  upon  their  mountains 
And  pitch  into  the  brine  off  some  white  cliff, 
Having  got  once  well  drunk  and  cleared  my  brows. 
How  mad  is  he  whom  drinking  makes  not  glad  1 "  ^ 

>  Bhelley's  tranelation  (with  Swinburne's  additions). 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ALC^US  AND  SAPPHO.  I  3  7 

The  wine,  and  that  which  Alcsens  mixes  with  it,  both  sufTer  in 
the  mixing.  The  explanation  of  all  things  ending  in  wino 
with  Alcseus  is,  as  we  have  already  said,  the  occasion  and  the 
audience  to  which  he  addressed  himself.  But  if  his  treatment 
of  his  themes  is  varied,  it  is  not  profound  ;  he  does  not  com- 
pensate for  the  narrowness  of  his  range  by  intensity  of  feeling, 
jlerein  he  difiers  from  Archilochus,  with  whom  he  has  exter- 
nally points  of  resemblance.  Both  lived  in  unquiet  times,  both. 
W9indered  far,  and  both  spent  much  time  in  camp.  Neither  was 
troubled  by  the  deeper  problems  of  life,  and  neither  found  a 
better  remedy  or  a  better  moral  for  suffering  than  "Let  ua 
drink."  But  here  the  resemblance  ceases.  When  Archilochus 
used  his  iambics  as  weapons,  he  struck  home.  Alcseus  only 
abused  Pittacus  ;  and  his  verses  on  the  death  of  Myrsilus,  which 
are  flown  with  wine  and  insolence,  are  marked  by  the  impetu- 
osity of  youth,  not  by  the  strength  of  genius. 

Contemporary  with  Alcaeus,  and  a  native  of  Lesbos,  was 
Sappho,  or,  as  the  name  is  written  in  her  own  dialect,  Psappha. 
Of  her  life  we  know  remarkably  little.  Herodotus  (2.  135) 
tells  us  that  her  father's  name  was  Skamandronymos,  and  that 
her  brother  Charaxus  wasted  his  money  on  the  famous  courtesan 
Rhodopis  (or  Doricha),  whom  he  brought  home  with  him  from 
Egypt,  for  which  Sappho  ridiculed  him  much.  From  the  Parian 
Marble  (36)  we  learn  that  she  went  into  exile  to  Sicily  along 
with  the  other  aristocrats  of  Lesbos,  but  as  the  inscription  is 
much  obliterated  here,  the  date  is  matter  of  conjecture.  Prom 
Aristotle  {Rhet.  i.  9),  we  learn  that  Alcaeus  addressed  an  ode 
(55)  to  Sappho,  to  the  effect  that  he  had  something  which  he 
wished  to  say,  but  shame  prevented  him ;  and  that  Sappho 
replied  with  an  ode  (28)  saying  that  had  his  wish  been  for  any- 
thing good  and  lionourable,  shame  would  not  have  prevented 
him  from  speaking.  If  to  this  scanty  information  about  the 
life  of  Sappho  we  add  the  tradition,  on  which  antiquity  is 
agreed,  and  which  the  fragments  of  her  works  confirm,  that,  in 
accordance  with  a  practice  not  infrequent  among  the  ^olians 
and  the  Dorians,  she  collected  round  her  a  number  of  younger 
women,  in  much  the  same  way  as  younger  men  collected  round 
Socrates,  then  we  shall  have  before  us  all  that  is  known  about 
the  life  of  Sappho.  Other  and  probably  erroneous  statements 
owe  their  existence  to  misunderstandings  and  uncertain  infer- 
ences from  her  works  and  mode  of  life.  Thus,  because  one  frag- 
ment (85)  says,  "  I  have  a  fair  daughter,  hke  a  golden  blos- 
som, my  beloved  Kleis,  whom  I  would  not  part  with  for  all 
Lydia,"it  has  been  inferred  that  Sappho  was  married  and  had  a 


I  3  8  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

child,  Kiel's;  which  is  as  tliough  we  were  to  infer  from  a 
fragment  of  Campbell  that  the  poet  was  "  the  chief  of  Ulva's 
isle  "  and  married  "  Lord  Ullin's  daughter."  It  is  probable 
that  the  story  of  her  hopeless  love  for  Phaon  had  its  origin 
in  a  similar  misunderstanding  of  some  of  Sappho's  verses ; 
but  it  was  the  existence  of  her  school,  following,  "fringe,' 
coterie,  or  club — none  of  the  words  will  convey  at  once  the 
idea  both  of  the  literary  and  artistic  objects  of  these  meetings 
and  the  personal  affection  which  was  the  indispensable  basis  of 
the  connection  between  the  teacher  and  the  pupil — that  aflforded 
an  application  for  the  meaning  of  her  verses,  and  gave  to  the 
coarsest  imaginings  of  exhausted  lasciviousness  an  opportunity 
and  an  appetite  for  stripping  Passion  of  her  poetry  and  violating 
her  in  the  name  of  history.  The  process  of  outrage  was  be- 
gun by  the  comedians  of  Athens,  and  is  carried  on,  openly  and 
secretly,  in  the  literature  of  to-day  by  writers  whose  knowledge 
of  literature  is  profound  enough  only  to  enable  them  to  misspell 
the  name  of  Sappho.  The  amount  of  freedom  \vhich  the  .^olians 
and  Dorians  allowed  their  women  was  unintelligible  to  the 
Athenians,  or  at  least  to  the  Athenians  of  a  later  time  than  this, 
the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  B.C. ;  and  though  the  .5]lolians 
or  Dorians  might  think  that  such  meetings  as  those  of  Sappho 
and  her  followers  were  for  Hterature  or  art,  the  Athenians — 
especially  those  who  were  separated  by  two  centuries  from  the 
facts  which  they  undertook  to  explain — possessed  much  more 
discernment.  Ameipsias,  and  then  comedian  after  comedian, 
throughout  the  old,  the  middle,  and  the  new  comedy,  took 
Sappho  as  the  subject  and  the  name  of  works,  of  whose  refine- 
ment the  Lysistrata,  the  Thesmophoriazusce,  and  the  Ecclesiazvsas 
of  Aristophanes  may  give  us  some  faint  idea.  Then  ancient 
historians  of  literature,  eg.  Chameleon,  in  their  search  for 
materials  for  a  biography  of  Sappho,  seized  on  these  comedies 
as  trustworthy  sources  of  information — thus  proving,  for  in- 
stance, that  among  Sappho's  lovers  were  Archilochus  (who  lived 
a  century  earlier),  or  Anacre^n  (who  lived  about  as  much  later) — 
and  thereby  left  future  workers  in  the  same  field  only  their 
imagination  to  draw  on  for  their  facts.  But  so  alarmingly 
luxuriant  did  this  prove,  that  even  the  name  of  Sappho,  by- 
word of  shame  as  it  had  become,  was  not  regarded  as  capable 
of  bearing  all  that  was  thus  put  upon  it,  and  relief  was  afforded 
whence  the  burden  came ;  for  a  new  and  wholly  imaginary 
Sappho  was  invented,  who  walks  the  pages  of  lexicographers 
like  Suidas  with  the  honour  in  dishonour  of  the  name  sha 
bears. 


LYRIC  poetry:    ALCiGUS  AND  SAPPHO.  I  39 

But  none  of  these  mephitic  exhalations  from  the  bogs  of  per- 
verted imaginings  availed  to  dim  the  glorious  light  of  Sappho's 
poetry ;  for  ancient  critics,  at  least,  seem  to  have  judged  a  work 
of  art  by  the  standard  of  art,  and  not  by  referring  to  the  morality 
of  the  artist.  Many,  indeed,  of  the  expressions  of  amazement 
at  Sappho's  work  which  are  to  be  found  in  Greek  writers  are 
open  to  some  suspicion,  as  being  based  on  not  wholly  satisfactory 
grounds.  When  Strabo  (xiii.  617)  calls  Sappho  "  a  marvellous 
phenomenon,"  he  seems  to  do  so  because  no  other  woman  could 
approach  her  in  merit ;  and  the  same  inadequate  standard  seems 
to  be  implied  in  the  expressions  "a  Homer  among  women," 
"a  tenth  Muse,"  "a  Pierian  bee,"  and  so  on,  which  are  fre- 
quently applied  to  her  in  Greek  writers.  If  this  were  all  that 
could  be  said  of  Sappho,  that  no  other  woman  who  wrote  in 
Greek  could  rival  her,  her  rank  would  not  be  high,  for  although 
a  considerable  number  of  women  in  Greece  did  write,  they  did 
not  attain  great  excellence.  It  is  a  better  testimony  both  to  the 
criticism  of  ancient  critics  and  to  the  value  of  Sappho  that  she 
was  ranked  among  the  nine  great  lyric  poets  by  the  Alexandrine 
school.  But  even  this  does  not  convey  the  full  tribute  to  "that 
ineffable  glory  and  grace  as  of  present  godhead,  that  subtle 
breath  and  bloom  of  very  heaven  itself,  that  dignity  of  divinity 
which  informs  the  most  passionate  and  piteous  notes  of  the 
unapproachable  poetess  with  such  grandeur  as  would  seem  im- 
possible to  such  passion."^  "The  highest  lyric  work  is  either 
passionate  or  imaginative,"  Mr,  Swinburne  has  said ;  ^  and  as 
Coleridge  is  the  greatest  representative  among  lyric  poets  of 
imaginative  poetry,  so  Sappho's  poetry  stands  highest  in  the 
passionate  lyric  of  all  times  and  ages.  Her  work  has  no  more 
variety  than  Coleridge's,  and  suffers  no  more  for  want  of  it. 
But  though  it  is  one,  it  is  not  the  same,  as  the  sea  is  one 
but  not  the  same.  In  one  as  in  the  other,  the  languid  volup- 
tuous swell,  which  reflects  now  the  sun,  now  the  midnight 
moon  (52),  and  the  stars  which  by  the  moon  "pale  their  in- 
effectual fires  "  (3),  is  ruffled  into  darkness  by  the  winds,  or 
flashes  with  "  the  lightning  of  the  noontide  ocean."  It  is  to 
the  sea  rather  than  to  fire  that  Sappho  should  be  likened ;  for 
although  her  verses  are  indeed,  as  ancient  critics  remarked, 
mixed  with  fire,  and  her  passion  blazes  out  now  here,  now 
there,  and  glows  always,  her  verses  and  her  passion  are  oceanic 
in  their  depth  and  tidal  in  their  strength.  Above  all,  the  oceaa 
has  a  voice — 

^  Swinburne,  Essays  and  Studies,  p.  9& 
2  lb.  275. 


140  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

"  And  a  tone 
Arises  from  its  measured  motion — ) 
How  sweet  1 " 

Some  of  the  fragments  which  we  possess  {e.g.  95  and  109)  hava 
been  preserved  expressly  because  of  the  beauty  of  their  sound, 
and  in  all  we  hear  "  the  echo  of  that  unimaginable  song,  with 
its  pauses  and  redoubled  notes,  and  returns  and  falls  of  sound, 
as  of  honey  dropping  from  heaven — as  of  tears  and  fire  and 
seed  of  life — which,  but  though  run  over  and  repeated  in  thought, 
pervades  the  spirit  with  '  a  sweet  possessive  pang,' "  ^  Her 
grasp  of  the  mechanism  of  verse,  which  is  implied  in  this  com- 
mand of  melody,  was  greater,  as  is  the  number  (15)  of  lier 
metres,  even  in  the  fragments  we  have,  than  any  other  lyric 
poet  possessed. 

Amongst  the  remains  of  Sappho's  poetry  are  one  complete 
ode  to  Aphrodite  (i)  and  a  considerable  fragment — four  stanzas 
— of  another  ode  (2),  imitated  by  Catullus  (51).  The  passion 
of  these  odes  is  such  as  elsewhere  is  portrayed  as  only  existing 
between  a  lover  and  his  mistress ;  but  in  these  odes  the  object 
of  Sappho's  passion  is  a  woman,  and  the  fragments  of  the  rest 
of  the  odes  (as  opposed  to  the  epithalamia  and  hymns^  resemble 
these.  This  has  driven  many  respectable  commentators  into 
taking  refuge  in  a  various  reading,  thereby  making  the  first 
ode  applicable  (as  they  vainly  imagine)  to  a  man.  The  second 
ode  cannot  be  thus  remedied  ;  and  commentators  back  abashed 
into  a  cloud  of  words — all  true — about  climate,  social  conditions, 
the  difference  between  the  modern  and  the  Greek  view  of 
friendship,  &c.  First,  however,  the  mystery  of  Sappho's  pas- 
sion cannot  be  dispersed,  or  be  anything  but  aggravated,  by 
various  readings  :  next,  it  is  not  scientific  demonstration  which 
can  make  any  man  feel  what  is  the  real  beauty  of  a  thing ;  and 
to  set  down  to  the  heat  of  the  climate  or  the  conditions  of  life 
in  Lesbos  that  passion  which  gives  to  Sappho's  music  "a  value 
beyond  thought  and  beyond  price,"  is  to  do  a  very  poor  service 
to  her  poetry  for  the  sake  of  arming  her  reputation  with  a 
treacherous  and  superfluous  weapon.  But  this  error,  radical  as 
it  is,  will  do  Sappho  but  little  harm,  for,  as  a  critical  estimate, 
it  lacks  even  that  grain  of  truth  without  which  no  error  can 
exist.  More  serious  is  the  mistaken  view  of  Sappho's  quality 
as  a  poetess  which  is  conveyed  in  Horace's  phrase  "mascula 
Sappho  ; " — more  serious  because  there  is  enough  truth  here  to 
make  the  error  current.  It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  language 
of  Sappho  is  that  of  a  lover  to  his  mistress  :  whoever  can  read 

^  Swinburne,  p.  92. 


LYRIC  poetry:    ALC^US  and  SAPPHO.  I4I 

Sappho  can  see  that.  It  is  the  most  obvious  and  the  most 
Buperficia]  trait  in  her  work.  To  take  this  characteristic,  and 
offer  it  to  the  world  as  the  sum  of  Sappho's  poetry,  as  though 
it  were  the  inversion  and  not  the  intensity  of  passion  which 
we  are  to  admire,  is  a  shallow  misconception  which  serves  to 
mark  the  standard  of  taste  for  lyric  poetry  in  Rome  in  Horace's 
day.  To  discover  the  sex  of  Sappho's  poetry  and  passion  was 
reserved  for  Rome  and  for  the  curious  in  such  matters.  The 
author  of  the  treatise  on  the  Sublime,  and  Dionysius  of  Hali- 
carnassus.  critics  from  whom  we  can  learn  how  to  understand  the 
beauty  of  Greek  literature,  were  not  thus  misled,  but,  with  un- 
erring instinct,  at  once  seized  on  the  perfection  in  delineation 
and  colouring,  and  on  the  marvellous  fidelity  in  her  representa- 
tion of  the  passion  of  love.  The  former  critic  saj's  (10),  "The 
feelings  which  result  from  the  madness  of  love  Sappho  always 
draws  after  their  symptoms  and  from  reality  itself.  And  where- 
in does  she  show  her  excellence  ?  In  that  she  is  marvellous  in 
selecting  and  combining  the  extremest  and  most  violent  of 
them."  He  then  quotes  the  second  of  our  fragments,  and  goes 
on  to  say,  "  Are  you  not  amazed  how  she  beats  and  drives 
into  it  soul,  body,  hearing,  speech,  sight,  complexion,  all  things 
which  are  regarded  as  disconnected  with  each  other ;  and  how 
at  one  and  the  same  moment  she  is  both  frozen  with  chill  and 
consumed  by  fire,  distraiight  of  reason  and  perfectly  logical, 
alarmed  with  fear  and  all  but  dead — all  that  her  feeling  may 
seem  to  be,  not  a  single  thing  but,  a  vielee  of  passions  ? " 

Athenseus  (xv.  687  a)  calls  Sappho  a  thorough  woman,  although 
a  poetess,  and  this  is  a  view  which  has  been  adopted  by  some 
modern  critics.  But  although  she  expresses  all  a  woman's  con- 
tempt for  a  rival  who  cannot  hold  her  dress  properly  (70),  and 
cays  (68)  to  another,  "  When  you  die,  no  one  will  remember 
you,  for  you  have  no  share  in  the  roses  of  Pieria ; "  still  it  is 
not  these  fragments  by  which  Sappho  rises  to  the  pre-eminence 
which  she  enjoys.  Her  lot e  of  flowers,  however,  of  the  rose, 
for  which,  says  Philostratus  (Ep.  71),  she  always  has  some  new 
chaplet  of  praise ;  her  tender  sympathy  for  the  hyacinth  which 
ie  crushed  under  the  feet  of  the  shepherds  on  the  mountains 
and  stains  purple  the  ground  (94),  for  the  tender  flower  of  the 
grass  which  is  trodden  down  by  the  dancers  (54) ;  her  joy  in 
''the  sweet-voiced  harbinger  of  spring,  the  nightingale"  (39); 
her  pity  for  the  doves  which  are  shot  by  men,  "  and  their  life 
becomes  cold  and  their  wings  fall "  (16) :  all  these  are  emotion8 
which  are  more  common  in  women  than  in  men,  but  in  poetiy 


14-  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITKHATURE. 

are  not  peculiar  to  or  distinctive  of  poetesses.  Wordsworth'i 
heart 

"  with  pleasure  fills, 
And  dances  with  the  daflFodUs.'* 
Shelley  loves 

**  The  fresh  Earth  in  new  leaves  drest,** 
or 

"  a  rose  embower'd 
In  its  own  green  leaves  ; " 
and  Keats 

"The  grass,  the  thicket,  and  the  fruit-tree  wild," 

and  "  all  little  birds  that  are  "  fill  English  lyric  "  with  theit 
sweet  jargoning." 

In  point  of  style,  Dionysius  {de  Comp.  Verb.  23)  takes  Sappho 
as  the  greatest  lyric  representative  of  smoothness  and  polish 
of  style,  and  in  illustration  of  his  meaning  he  quotes  the  ode 
which  now  stands  first  in  Bergk's  collection.  He  goes  on  to 
say  that  the  grace  and  beauty  of  this  style  consists  in  the  flow 
of  its  melody.  To  express  the  quality  of  Sappho's  verse  we 
must  borrow  a  comparison  from  Sappho  herself;  it  is  "more 
delicate  than  water"  (122).     It  makes  a  pleasant  noise — 

"  A  noise  like  of  a  hidden  brook 
In  the  leafy  month  of  June, 
That  to  the  sleeping  woods  all  night 
Singe th  a  quiet  tune." 

Dionysius  also  says  that  it  is  flower-like ;  not  that  beauties  are 
woven  into  her  style,  as  Demetrius  {de  Eloc.  166)  says,  but  her 
verse  is  itself  (again  we  must  borrow  from  Sappho  herself) 
"more  delicate  than  the  rose"  (123).  For  examples  of  her 
"redoubled  notes  and  returns  and  falls"  of  song  we  thank 
Demetrius,  although  he  does  present  them  to  us  with  the  labels 
"anaphora,"  " anadiplosis,"  attached  (ib.  141);  but  most  grate- 
ful are  we  to  a  scholiast  (Hermog.  vii.  9S3)  who  has  preserved 
us  three  lines  "  more  precious  than  gold  "  (123),  in  which  Sappho 
likens  an  unmarried  girl  to  an  apple  which  reddens  "  atop  of 
the  topmost  twig,"  and  the  apple-gatherers  have  forgotten  it- 
no  !  not  forgotten  it ;  they  were  not  able  to  reach  it 

Astronomers  have  calculated  the  law  of  the  distance  which 
separates  the  planets  from  each  other,  and  have  discovered 
thereby  that  in  one  region  where,  according  to  this  law,  there 
should  be  a  planet,  there  is  no  planet,  but  asteroids.  These  are 
the  fragments  of  what  once  was  a  planet.  Of  Sappho's  poetry 
we  have  only  fragments,  but  they,  like  the  asteroids,  show  whert 
a  planet  was  once. 


OF 
LYRIC  poetry:    algous  and  SAPPHO.  1 43 


o,    y 


Amongst  the  school  of  Sappho  are  usually  placed  Damophila 
and  Erinna.  No  fragment  by  the  former  has  come  down  to  us, 
and  with  regard  to  her  life  we  know  nothing.  About  the  lattef 
more  information  is  forthcoming,  but  on  every  matter  concerned 
with  her  either  our  authorities  are  in  hopeless  conflict  or  grave 
doubts  have  been  raised  in  modern  times.  Tenos,  Telos,  Ehodes, 
and  Lesbos  have  been  assigned  as  her  birthplace,  but  the  fact 
that  the  epigrams  which  go  by  her  name  are  written  in  Dorian 
has  inclined  most  modern  critics  to  regard  Telos  as  the  place  of 
her  birth.  Still  greater  are  the  discrepancies  with  regard  to  her 
date.  On  the  one  hand,  she  is  made  to  be  a  contemporary  of 
Sappho,  and  a  doubtful  reading  in  one  of  Sappho's  fragments 
(77)  may  conceal  her  name.  On  the  other  hand,  Eusebius  gives 
as  her  date  B.C.  352,  a  difference  of  two  centuries  or  more.  This 
uncertainty  as  to  her  date  makes  it  difficult  to  decide  whether 
the  story  of  her  untimely  death  at  the  age  of  nineteen  is  pro- 
bably based  on  good  authority,  or  is  a  misinterpretation  of  some- 
thing in  her  own  writings.  She  is  said  to  have  written  a  poem 
of  300  hexameters,  which  was  entitled  the  Distaff.  Of  this  we 
have  three  insignificant  fragments  (one  of  doubtful  authenticity), 
which  reveal  nothing  as  to  the  nature  of  the  poem,  and  we  have 
no  other  information  on  the  subject.  It  has  been  conjectured 
that  it  resembled  the  idyll  of  Theocritus  (28),  which  bears  the 
same  name.  Some  admirer  of  her  poetry  in  antiquity  compared 
her  to  Homer ;  but  if  this  were  not  an  exaggeration,  we  should 
probably  have  had  more  frequent  mention  of  her,  and  more 
frequent  quotations.  The  three  epigrams  which  go  by  her 
name  in  the  Anthology  do  not  show  any  genius. 

"While  the  ode  and  personal  lyric  were  being  wrought  to  their 
greatest  perfection  in  Lesbos,  in  Sicily  the  other  branch  of 
melic,  choral  poetry,  was  being  developed  by  Stesichorus.  The 
importance  which  was  attached  to  his  services  to  choral  music 
is  indicated  by  the  name  "  Stesichorus,"  which  means  "  founder 
of  chorus,"  and  superseded  entirely  the  original  name  of  the 
poet,  which  was  Teisias.  The  place  of  his  birth  is  uncertain ; 
it  is  sometimes  said  to  have  been  Matauros,  sometimes  Himera, 
and  modern  writers  usually  combine  these  two  traditions  by 
saying  that  he  was  born  at  Himera,  but  belonged  by  extraction 
to  Matauros.  If  his  date  were  fixed,  it  might  help  to  settle  the 
question,  for  he  may  have  been  born  before  the  foundation  of 
Himera  ;  but  the  time  is  even  more  uncertain  than  the  place  of 
his  birth,  and  all  we  can  say  is,  that,  roughly,  he  belongs  to  the 
first  half  of  the  six:>h  century  b.c.  About  his  life  we  know 
absolutely  nothing,  for  the  story  told  by  Plato  {Ph.  243)  that 


144  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

he  was  smitten  with  blindness  by  Helena  because  he  had  in  u 
poem  declared  her  to  be  the  source  of  Troy's  woes,  cannot  be 
made  to  yield  any  residuum  of  fact.  Probably  he  did  make 
Bome  such  statement  in  some  poem,  and  he  certainly  in  another 
poem,  from  which  Plato  quotes,  declared  that  the  story  about 
Helen  was  untrue ;  that  she  never  crossed  the  sea  to  Troy  (32). 
The  contradictory  nature  of  these  two  statements  may  have  led 
to  the  second  being  regarded  as  a  recantation,  for  Plato  terms 
it  "  the  so-called  palinode."  The  next  step  would  be  to  speculate 
on  the  poet's  reason  for  recanting,  and  thus  the  story  of  his 
blindness  would  arise.  The  mode  of  expression  which  Plato 
uses,  "  the  so-called  palinode,"  suggests  that  the  poem  was  not 
really  a  palinode  or  recantation,  and  the  lines  which  he  quotes 
rather  imply  that  the  story  which  Stesichorus  was  denying  was 
one  told  by  others,  not  one  of  his  own  telling  which  he  was 
recanting.  However,  although  the  so-called  palinode  cannot  be 
made  to  yield  any  information  as  to  the  life  of  Stesichorus,  it 
has  a  value  in  the  history  of  literature  ;  for  in  it  the  story  which' 
Euripides  took  for  the  plot  of  his  Helena,  and  which  was  known 
to  Herodotus,  that  Helena  stayed  in  Egypt  and  her  phantom 
■went  to  Troy  with  Paris,  made,  so  far  as  we  know,  its  first 
appearance  in  literature.  In  connection  with  the  life  of  Stesi- 
chorus another  story  is  told,  that  he  warned  his  fellow-citizens 
against  the  designs  of  a  certain  tyrant  by  the  fable  of  the  horse 
which,  for  the  purposes  of  vengeance,  obtained  the  assistance  of 
man,  and  found  that  he  had  to  pay  for  his  vengeance  by  the 
loss  of  his  liberty.  The  warning  was  disregarded,  the  tyrant 
was  successful,  and  Stesichorus  had  to  fly  to  Catana,  where  he 
is  said  to  have  died.  The  uncertainty  as  to  Stesicliorus'  date 
makes  it  uncertain  who  the  tyrant  was,  whether  Gelon  or  Pha- 
laris,  but  we  are  most  likely  to  be  safe  if  we  cling  to  the  autho- 
rity of  Aristotle  (Bhei.  2.  20),  who  says  it  was  Phalaris  of 
Acragas.  This  story  too  has  its  interest  in  the  history  of  litera- 
ture, for  it  is  one  of  the  subjects  treated  of  in  the  famous  letters 
of  Phalaris. 

Although  Stesichorus  was  later  in  date  than  Alcman,  he  is  in 
no  other  sense  his  successor.  Stesichorus  did  not  take  up  choral 
lyric  where  Alcman  left  it,  but  made  a  fresh  departure.  Alcman 
had  imported  the  subjective  and  personal  element  into  choral 
poetry,  and  had  thereby  helped  to  purify  it  of  the  narrative 
character  which  is  alien  to  lyric,  and  into  which  poetry  cele- 
brating the  deeds  of  the  gods  was  peculiarly  apt  to  fall.  Stesi- 
chorus was  not  affected  by  the  advance  thus  made  by  Alcman ; 
he  started  from  and  belonged  to  an  earlier  stage  in  the  history 


LYRIC  poetry:    ALC^US  and  SAPPHO.  I45 

of  choral  lyric,  altliough  in  time  he  was  later  than  Alcman. 
The  epic  element  is  even  more  visible  in  Stesichorus  than  the 
subjective  in  Alcman,  for  in  the  former  poet  the  epic  element 
is  not  qualified  by  any  other.  The  poems  of  Stesichorus  are 
sometimes  spoken  of  as  "epic  lyric"  or  "  melic  epic."  They 
seem  to  have  been  long  narratives  of  the  exploits  of  various 
heroes.  Thus  the  Gertjonis  related  the  combat  of  Heracles  with 
the  triple-bodied  Geryon ;  the  Cycnus,  Heracles'  combat  with 
Cycnus,  the  son  of  Ares  ;  the  Cerberus  told  how  Heracles 
fetched  the  dog  Cerberus  from  the  nether  world ;  the  Scylla  his 
adventures  with  Scylla.  The  Oresteia,  as  its  name  implies,  was 
the  story  of  Orestes,  and  the  title  of  the  Sack  of  Troy  tells  ita 
own  subject.  These  poems  or  ballads  were  as  purely  narrative 
as  epic,  but  were  written  in  lyric  metres,  and  were  sung  by  a 
chorus.  Tims  they  were  lyrical  in  form  but  not  in  spirit,  and 
yet  their  spirit,  as  far  as  we  can  judge,  was  not  that  of  epic ; 
for  Stesichorus  abandoned  the  purely  objective  character  of  epic 
poetry  without  attaining  the  subjective  character  of  lyric  poetry. 
That  is  to  say,  he  did  not  in  his  narratives  confine  himself  to 
narrative,  but  developed  the  psychological  interest,  and  is  thus 
the  forerunner  of  the  earliest  Greek  novelists.  But  he  was  still 
further  removed  from  the  spirit  of  epic  in  that  he  was  not  in- 
clined to  accept  and  hand  on  the  old  tales  with  implicit  belief, 
but  assumed  an  attitude  of  criticism — historical  and  moral — 
with  regard  to  them,  and  altered  them  to  suit  his  own  rational- 
ism. It  is  difficult  to  see  how  Stesichorus,  being  thus  out  of 
sympathy  with  his  subject-matter,  could  have  treated  it  success- 
fully, and  Quintilian  (10.  i.  62)  implies  that  his  treatment  was 
not  wholly  successful.  Quintilian,  however,  apparently  thinks 
that  this  was  because  the  subjects  handled  by  Stesichorus  were 
too  great  to  admit  of  lyrical  treatment ;  but  this  only  shows 
that  Stesichorus  had  misconceived  or  failed  to  realise  the  proper 
province  of  his  art.  Yet,  although  Stesichorus  was  not  pos- 
sessed by  the  spirit  of  either  epic  or  lyric,  and  his  "  epic  lyric" 
was  consequently  neither  epic  nor  lyric,  he  still  enjoyed  con- 
siderable reputation  both  as  a  writer  and  as  a  pioneer  in  the 
field  of  lyric.     How  was  this  ? 

As  Stesichorus'  poetry  was  lyrical  only  in  form,  it  is  to  the 
form  of  lyric  that  we  must  look  for  the  innovations  and  im- 
provements which  he  made.  The  earliest  form  which  melic 
took  in  literature  was  that  of  nomes,  songs  of  worship  and 
praise  delivered  as  solos.  This  form  of  melic  was  succeeded  by 
choral  lyrics,  and  it  was  by  giving  to  choral  lyric  the  distinctive 
form  which  it  ever  afterwards  bore  that  Stesichorus  acquired 


146  mSTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

the  place  which  he  holds  in  the  history  of  melic.  The  fad 
that  the  invention  of  hymns  is  ascribed  to  him  conceals  beneath 
its  surface  the  real  innovation  which  he  introduced.  Hymns 
had  existed  long  before  the  time  of  Stesichorus  and  before 
the  beginning  of  the  history  of  lyric  poetry.  They  also  had 
existed  even  in  the  history  of  melic  before  Stesichorus,  for  the 
choral  odes  of  Thaletas  were  hymns.  But  the  division  of  the 
hymn  into  the  three  parts — strophe,  antistrophe,  and  epode, 
which  corresponded  to  the  movements  of  the  chorus  round  the 
altar,  was,  even  if  not  invented  by  Stesichorus,  but  borrowed  by 
him  from  existing  usage  in  Sicily,  at  any  rate  introduced  and 
established  in  choral  melic  by  him.  In  this  tripartite  division  of 
the  choral  ode  Stesichorus  left  his  mark  permanently  on  lyric. 
In  another  and  minor  point  he  also  opened  a  path  which  his 
successors  followed  :  he  carried  the  length  of  the  strophe  and 
antistrophe  much  farther  than  had  ever  been  done  before,  and 
by  thus  increasing  the  length  gained  additional  room  for  varying 
and  developing  the  metre. 

But  in  addition  to  the  services  he  rendered  to  lyric,  Stesi- 
chorus has  the  reputation  of  being  a  great  writer.  On  this 
point  we  have  to  rely  upon  the  opinion  of  Dionysius  of  Hali- 
carnassus,  the  author  of  the  treatise  on  the  Sublime,  and  Quin- 
tilian.  Stesichorus'  treatment  of  the  subject-matter,  as  we  have 
Been,  Quintilian  defends  with  little  zeal  and  less  discretion ;  but 
both  he  and  Dionysius  (Script.  Vet.  Cens.  2.  7)  say  that  Stesi- 
chorus excelled  in  character-drawing.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
fragments  which  in  the  least  degree  enables  us  to  check  or  con- 
firm this  statement ;  but  this  quality  is  the  other  and  better 
side  of  that  tendency  to  psychological  analysis  which  marks 
Stesichorus  as  alien  to  the  spirit  of  epic  and  allied  to  romance. 
In  this  connection  we  should  mention  that,  as  well  as  the  hero- 
myths  which  Stesichorus  used  in  the  poems  we  have  already 
mentioned,  the  Geryonis,  Cerberus,  Scylla,  Cycnus,  &c.,  love- 
stories  and  pastoral  scenes  were  taken  by  him  as  themes.  Thus 
Stesichorus  was  the  forerunner  of  bucolic  as  well  as  of  novel- 
writers.  Whether  his  erotica  and  bucolica  were  of  the  same 
form,  and  were  sung  chorally  as  well  as  his  other  lyrics,  is  a 
point  on  which  no  evidence  is  forthcoming.  The  poems  which 
celebrated  the  deeds  of  Heracles  or  other  heroes  would  naturally 
be  performed  at  some  festival  in  honour  of  the  hero  ;  but  it  ie 
hard  to  imagine  on  what  occasion  such  a  poem  as  the  Kalyka, 
which  told  how  Kalyka  fell  in  love  with  Euathlos,  and  having 
prayed  in  vain  to  Aphrodite  that  she  might  marry  him,  hanged 
herself,  could  be  sung  publicly  as  a  chorus.    On  the  other  hand, 


LYRIC  poetry:  elegiac  and  iambic  writers.     147 

to  suppose  that  this  and  the  Radina  were  composed  for  solo 
recitation  or  singing  in  private  has  nothing  positive  in  its  sup 
port.  In  connection  with  the  subject  of  Stesichorus'  character- 
drawing,  we  may  note  as  interesting  that  Athenaeus  (xiv.  6190), 
from  whom  we  get  the  sketch  of  the  plot  of  the  Kalyka,  remarks 
with  evident  satisfaction  that  the  character  of  Kalyka,  as  drawn 
by  Stesichorus,  was  extremely  moral.  She  desired  the  love 
of  Euathlos,  but  only  on  the  condition  of  becoming  his  lawful 
wife. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

BLBGIAC   AND   IAMBIC   WRITERS    {continued). 

Under  the  name  of  Theognis  two  books  of  elegiacs  have  come 
down  to  us,  of  which  the  first  consists  of  1230  verses,  and  the 
second,  which  is  preserved  only  in  one  manuscript — the  best, 
the  Mutinensis,  A — of  159  verses.  These  books  do  not  consti- 
tute one  single  poem,  but  contain  a  great  number  of  aphorisms, 
gnomes,  reflections,  elegies,  epigrams,  parodies,  and  amatory 
verses,  arranged  on  no  uniform  principle,  though  at  times  pieces 
seem  to  follow  each  other  because  of  their  resemblance  ;  at  others, 
because  of  their  contrast ;  and  at  other  times,  again,  the  juxta- 
position of  the  pieces  seems  to  be  satirical ;  while  repetitions  are 
not  unfrequent,  and  have  given  rise  to  many  hypotheses  as  to 
the  original  arrangement  of  the  contents  of  the  books.  But 
although  all  the  manuscripts  give  the  name  of  Theognis  to  their 
contents,  these  are  not  all  by  Theognis,  nor  was  the  collec- 
tion originally  intended  to  be  passed  off  as  the  work  solely  of 
Theognis.  It  was  rather  intended  as  an  anthology  of  the  older 
elegiac  writers,  and  as  that  part  of  its  contents  which  is  poli- 
tical is  violently  oligarchical,  it  was — unless  put  together  at  a 
time  when,  or  a  place  where,  political  feeling  was  extinct — 
addressed  to  aristocratic  readers.  In  course  of  time  the  value  for 
practical  life  of  its  shrewd  maxims  seems  to  have  caused  it  to  bft 
regarded  as  eminently  suited  for  educational  purposes  ;  and  its 
adoption  as  part  of  a  Greek  boy's  education  may  have  been 
helped  by  the  feeling,  which  was  growing  up  even  in  Plato's 
time,  that  the  old  system  of  confining  a  boy  to  one  or  two 
authors,  whom  he  learnt  by  heart,  might  with  advantage  be 
replaced  by  a  curriculum  of  wider  range,  a  use  to  which  this 
anthology  would  lend  itself  excellently. 


f  48  fflSTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

As  it  is  by  reference  to  the  life  and  times  of  Theognis  that 
his  works  in  the  Theognidea  are  to  be  distinguished  from  the 
poems  which  are  not  by  him,  the  question  arises,  what  do  we 
know  of  his  life  and  times?  And  at  the  outset  it  must  be 
confessed  that  it  is  unfortunately  from  this  anthology,  the 
Theognidea^  which  undoubtedly  contains  poems  by  Theognis, 
and  also  undoubtedly  contains  poems  not  by  him,  that  we  have 
to  get  our  information.  But  suspicious  as  this  circular  mode  of 
argument  naturally  makes  us,  we  can  reasonably  accept  the  out- 
lines, if  not  the  details,  whicli  it  puts  before  us.  Theognis  was 
born  in  Megara — the  Megara  in  Greece,  not  in  Sicily — and, 
although  his  date  is  disputed,  probably  in  the  first  half  of  the 
sixth  century  B.C.,  so  that  he  flourished  about  the  middle  or  in 
the  latter  half  of  that  century.  When  Megara  had  tlirown  off 
the  yoke  of  Corinth,  she  began  to  display  great  activity  in 
colonisation,  and  especially  in  planting  colonies  on  the  shores 
of  the  Black  Sea.  This  activity  was  accompanied  by  a  great 
extension  of  her  commerce  and  by  a  considerable  increase  in  her 
wealth.  But  the  distribution  of  this  wealth  was  unequal :  riches 
grew,  but  poverty  also  grew,  and  the  gap  between  the  two 
widened  until  tlie  social  fabric  split.  An  oligarch  was,  as  always 
in  these  times,  found  to  betray  his  fellow-oligarchs  and  to  delude 
the  people.  Theagenes  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  reform 
party,  and  utilised  his  position  to  make  himself  tyrant.  Even- 
tually he  was  overthrown,  and  then  oligarchy  and  democracy 
found  themselves  face  to  face.  A  time  of  confusion  and  strug- 
gling followed,  in  which  sometimes  oligarchy,  sometimes  demo- 
cracy, got  the  upper  hand,  and  neither,  when  victor,  showed 
mercy  to  the  fallen.  Each  took  from  the  other  what  was  to  be. 
had  :  the  democrats  confiscated  the  oligarchs'  property,  and  the 
oligarchs,  to  use  an  expression  of  Theognis'  own  in  this  con- 
nection (314),  "drank  the  blood"  of  the  democrats.  "Weight 
tells  in  these  encounters,  and  victory  finally  remained  with  the 
democracy. 

These  were  the  political  and  social  conditions  under  which 
Theognis  lived.  The  part  which  he  personally  took  in  the 
etruggles  of  his  time  we  know  little  about,  except  that,  as  is 
plain  from  the  hatred  which  his  verses  show  for  the  democrats, 
he  belonged  to  the  oligarchs.  He  probably  lost  his  property 
(345)  and  went  into  exile,  but  afterwards  returned  to  his  native 
country.  One  elegy  (783)  states  that  the  author  went  to  Sicily 
and  to  Euboea,  and  that  he  was  received  kindly,  but  that 
nothing  could  reconcile  him  to  exile  from  his  native  country. 
Another  couplet  (209)  complains  that  an  exile  has  no  friend* 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  "WTtlTERS.       1 49 

It  has  been  inferred  (from  261,  257,  and  1097)  that  the  woman 
whom  he  loved  was  given  in  marriage  by  lier  parents  to  some 
roturier  because  of  his  wealth,  and  that  after  marriage,  as  before, 
she  preferred  Theognis.  But  although  the  frequent  and  bitter 
complaints  of  poverty  which  occur  are  probably  by  Theognia 
(e.g.  619  and  649),  it  is  rash  to  draw  such  detailed  inferences  as 
the  above  solely  on  the  strength  of  a  combination  of  passages 
which  may  be  by  different  authors  and  not  contain  even  a  word 
by  Theognis.  It  is  better  to  abandon  the  attempt  to  extract 
personal  details,  and  to  content  ourselves  with  the  picture  which 
our  collection  gives  of  the  morality,  the  society,  and  the  poli- 
tical feeling  of  the  time.  The  fierce  savagery  which  seems  to 
have  been  latent  at  all  times  among  the  Greeks,  displayed 
itself  in  all  its  murderous  cruelty  when  political  conflicts  neared 
or  reacheil  tlie  stage  of  revolution.  Theognis  prayed  "  to  drink 
the  blood  "  of  the  democrats.  Elsewhere  (847)  he  says,  "  Tram- 
ple on  the  people,  smite  them  with  the  keen  goad,"  and  so 
on.  It  is,  however,  impossible  to  live  at  high  pressure  always, 
and  Theognis  cannot  keep  up  to  this  level  continually.  In 
default,  he  has  a  pair  of  "  perpetual  epithets,"  which  serve  to 
quietly  mark  the  ever-present  oligarchical  feeling  in  his  mind 
towards  the  mob.  Whenever  he  speaks  of  "the  good,"  it  is 
understood  that  he  does  not  mean  chiefly  men  who  are  dis- 
tinguished for  exemplary  lives  and  morality  of  conduct,  but 
those  who  were  of  the  same  political  views  as  himself.  So 
when  he  speaks  of  "  the  base,"  "  the  craven,"  he  not  only 
meant  to  connote  all  that  is  bad,  but  also  to  denote  the  people. 
There  was  one  other  class  of  men  whom  the  oligarchs  of  the 
time  hated  as  much  as,  perhaps  more  than,  they  did  the  mob : 
these  were  the  oligarchs  who  betrayed  their  fellows  and  made 
themselves  tyrants.  Not  only  does  Theognis  decline  to  associate 
with  tyrants  or  mourn  over  their  tombs  (1203),  he  even  advo- 
cates tyrannicide  (1181).  Perhaps  it  was  because  he  hated 
tyrants  on  the  one  side  and  the  democracy  on  the  other,  and 
also  because  he  had  the  wit  to  see  that  even  oligarchical  rulers 
did  not  always  govern  in  the  best  possible  manner  (855),  that 
he  imagined  he  followed  a  via  media  in  politics.  At  any  rate,* 
he  is  never  tired  of  posing  as  a  model  of  political  moderation, 
and  as  a  pattern  which  the  rising  generation  should  mould 
themselves  on  {e.g.  219,  367,  331,  544,  945). 

The  political  verses  of  Theognis,  although  they  would  in- 
cidentally serve  the  purpose  of  educating  the  rising  generation 
in  the  right  creed,  were  probably  not  meant  solely  for  that 
purpose,  but  were  mainly  intended  as  a  relief  to,  and  as  the 


150  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

expiession  of,  his  own  feelings ;  and  we  can  imagine  thatj 
delivered  over  the  wine  after  dinner  to  the  accompaniment  of 
the  flute,  and  amid  the  applause  of  a  sympathising  audience, 
they  may  have  passed  for  poetry.  In  those  verses  which  deal 
with  society  the  didactic  element  is  a  large  part,  though  here, 
too,  there  are  many  things  which  cannot  have  been  intended 
for  the  instruction  of  the  young.  Beginning  with  the  didactic 
element,  we  find  that  Theognis'  advice  to  his  young  friend 
Cyrnus  is  largely  coloured  by  political  considerations.  He  gives 
him  the  excellent  advice  to  associate  only  with  the  good  ;  to  sit 
at  dinner  as  near  as  possible  to  a  good  man,  so  as  to  carry  oflE 
some  benefit  from  what  he  says  (563) ;  to  always  consult,  even 
at  the  cost  of  some  trouble,  a  good  man  (71),  for  from  him  you 
will  get  good  advice  (29).  The  advice  to  avoid  the  bad  is 
equally  sound ;  their  word  is  not  to  be  relied  on  (1168)  ;  they 
are  treacherous  (65)  and  unjust  (279).  But  when  we  find  that 
"  the  bad  "  are  the  people  who  are  responsible  for  all  civil  war 
(44),  and  are  in  power  (411),  we  see  that  the  corruption  to 
which  the  young  man  who  associates  with  them  is  liable  (35) 
is  rather  political  than  moral ;  and  that  "  the  good,"  who  never 
bring  trouble  on  a  state  (43),  are  the  aristocracy.  The  advice, 
however,  which  Theognis  gives  on  the  choice  and  behaviour 
of  friends  is  better.  Gold  can  be  readily  tested,  but  not  men 
(117);  time  (967)  and  need  (641)  are  required  to  show  the 
worth  of  a  man  ;  your  friendship  should  not  be  forced  on  any 
one  (371) ;  and  when  you  have  gained  a  friend,  you  should  be 
slow  to  believe  anything  said  against  him,  and  should  not  quarrel 
about  trifles — these  are  conditions  on  which  alone  friendship  can 
exist  among  men  (323,  1 151)  ;  on  the  other  hand,  you  must  not 
from  a  false  conception  of  friendship  praise  what  you  do  not 
approve  in  your  friend's  conduct ;  to  encourage  him  in  wrong 
brings  punishment  from  the  gods  (1081,  851). 

From  other  passages,  less  didactic  in  tone,  we  gather  Theognis* 
views  on  the  state  of  society  in  his  time,  The  rock  ahead 
■which  fills  most  of  his  vision  is  the  general  worship  of  wealth. 
You  may  be  as  clever  as  Sisyphus,  as  eloquent  as  Nestor,  and 
as  upright  as  Rhadamanthus  himself,  but  as  against  wealth  all 
these  qualities  are  nothing  w^orth  (699).  Wealth  is  the  most 
desirable  of  the  gods ;  it  can  even  make  a  "  bad  "  man  a  "  good  " 
one  (11 17)  ;  the  poor  man  is  despised  and  his  tongue  is  bound 
(621,  267,  177).  The  result  of  this  unhealthy  state  of  things 
is  that  the  "bad"  rich  intermarry  with  the  "good,''  the  most 
fundamental  social  distinctions  are  overthrown,  the  race  is  con- 
sequently deteriorating,   and  there  is  but  little  hope  for  the 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  WRITERS.       I  5  I 

country  (i  109,  183).  With  society  in  this  state  and  the  govern- 
ment in  the  hands  of  the  bad  (44),  we  are  not  surprised  to 
find  that  friends  are  treacherous  (811),  filial  ingratitude  ram 
pant  and  not  ashamed  (273),  that  no  one  on  earth  is  happy 
(167),  that  the  bad  triumph  insolently  over  the  good  (289),  and 
that  the  best  thing  for  a  man  is  not  to  be  born  into  this  world 
at  all,  and  the  next  best  thing  is  to  die  at  once  (425). 

But  it  would  be  an  error  to  imagine  that  the  elegiacs  which 
Theognis  delivered  after  dinner  were  permanently  of  this  melan- 
choly hue.  He  had  not  *'  le  vin  triste  "  always.  Much  wine, 
he  says  (509),  is  a  bad  thing,  "but  if  a  man  drinks  scientifi- 
cally, it  is  a  good  thing ; "  and  presumably  by  this  he  means 
attaining  to  the  stage  which,  with  much  satisfaction,  he  else- 
where describes  himself  as  being  in — the  stage,  that  is,  of  "  being 
no  longer  sober  and  not  yet  very  drunk"  (478);  on  which  occasion, 
being  in  a  didactic  mood,  he  tells  Simonides  that  he  should 
not  wake  the  sleepers,  nor  compel  any  one  to  stay  who  does  not 
wish  to  stay,  and  not  turn  out  any  one  who  does  not  wish  to  go, 
and  should  charge  the  glasses  of  those  who  want  wine ;  that  he, 
being  in  the  aforesaid  state,  is  going  home.  It  is  perhaps,  how- 
ever, only  fair  to  Theognis  to  say  that  it  is  uncertain  how  much 
of  this  elegy  belongs  to  him.  But  Theognis  was  of  a  sociable 
disposition,  for  he  declares  (627)  that  it  is  a  disgrace  to  be 
drunk  when  the  company  is  sober,  but  also  a  disgrace  to  be 
sober  when  the  company  is  drunk.  He  lays  down  the  same 
principle  of  adapting  oneself  to  tlie  society  one  is  in  elsewhere 
when  he  says  (313),  "Amongst  the  uproarious  I  am  very  up- 
roarious, and  amongst  the  proper  no  man  more  proper  than  I." 
He  expressly  sets  it  forth  as  a  rule  of  conduct  by  which  his 
young  friends  are  to  guide  themselves  in  life,  to  be  friendly  in 
word  to  everybody  (63),  and  to  trust  no  one,  even  though  he 
swears  by  the  name  of  Zeus  himself  (283).  Still  more  clearly 
does  he  express  himself  when  he  tells  Cyrnus  (213)  to  change 
his  complexion  as  often  as  he  changes  his  company,  and  to  tak«» 
pattern  by  the  cuttlefish,  which  has  no  colour  of  its  own,  but 
takes  its  hue  from  the  rock  on  which  it  happens  to  be. 

This  last  passage  does  not  give  us  a  very  high  opinion  of 
Theognis'  code  of  morality,  and  we  shall  see  that  he  nowhere 
rises  above  the  level  of  his  time,  and  that,  in  place  of  elevating 
moral  ideas,  he  gives  us  worldly  wisdom.  The  ordinary  precepts 
are  to  be  found  in  Theognis  :  fear  and  worship  the  gods  (11 79), 
for  from  them  come  good  and  evil  (171) ;  they  are  to  be  prayed 
tc  in  tribulation  (554),  for  they  can  grant  our  requests  (11 15). 
Courage  is  not  made  so  much  of  by  him  as  we  should  have 


152  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

expected  from  the  higli  place  •which  it  took  in  antiquity  among 
the  virtues.  The  references  to  it  and  to  war  are  singularly  few. 
Theognis  does  not  expressly  enjoin  courage  anywhere,  but  he 
implies  that  cowardice  is  disgraceful  (889),  especially  when  the 
country  is  in  danger  (825).  Against  lying  he  speaks  frequenth 
and  decidedly  (85,  118,  875,  1071),  on  the  ground  that  it  doea 
not  do  much  good,  to  begin  with,  and  always  proves  disgraceful 
(607).  Children  should  honour  their  parents,  because  the  days 
of  those  who  do  not  are  few  in  the  land  (821).  Justice,  too, 
is  inculcated  :  give  no  man  except  what  is  his  own  (332),  and 
do  not  yield  to  the  temptations  of  lucre  (465)  ;  in  justice  is 
comprised  every  virtue  (147).  But  the  golden  rule  for  conduct 
is,  Exceed  in  nothing ;  the  mean  is  best  in  all  things  (335). 
This  is  the  better  side  of  the  morality  of  the  time ;  the  worse 
comes  out  in  Theognis  quite  as  nakedly  as  in  any  other  Greek 
writer,  perhaps  more  so.  It  is  folly  to  treat  the  bad  well ;  you 
may  as  well  sow  the  sea,  for  the  good  you  will  reap  (105).  There 
are  two  good  reasons  for  doing  no  such  thing  :  you  waste  your 
own  things,  and  you  get  no  gratitude  (955).  Theognis  goes  on 
a  different  principle  :  he  prays  to  Zeus  that  he  may  get  his  ene- 
mies on  the  hip  (338),  and  have  revenge  (345),  plunder  them  of 
their  property,  and  drink  their  blood  (561).  "  Speak  your  enemy 
fair,"  he  says  (363)  ;  "  then,  when  y..  u  have  him  down,  strike, 
and  heed  not  his  prayers." 

Invaluable  as  this  collection  of  elegiacs  is  for  the  light  which 
it  throws  on  the  manners,  thought,  politics,  and  morality  of  the 
time,  it  has  little  value  from  the  point  of  view  of  art.  There 
is  from  beginning  to  end  scarcely  a  single  beauty  of  thought, 
expression,  or  imagery,  to  be  found  in  it.  What  apparently 
was  the  proem  of  Theognis'  works  (19-24),  which  is  addressed 
by  Theognis  in  name  to  his  friend  Cyrnus,  rises  above  the 
other  pieces  in  the  confidence  with  which  the  anther  promises 
Cyrnus  and  himself  eternal  and  universal  fame.  Thero  is  also 
another  elegy  (667-682),  comparing  the  condition  of  the  state 
to  a  ship  in  a  storm,  wliich  is  of  considerable  beauty,  and  is  far 
above  anything  else  in  the  collection  ;  but  it  is  doubtful  whether 
this  is  the  work  of  Theognis.  As  a  rule,  these  elegiacs  are 
"lowered  to  the  level  of  the  Dorian  understanding."  Simple 
the  poetry  of  Theognis  is ;  sensuous  scarcely  ever,  and  never 
impassioned.  Not  only  does  it  lack  beauty,  but  it  rarely  shows 
any  profundity  of  thought ;  thougli,  perhaps,  this  is  the  common 
defect  of  the  age,  for  it  is  only  when  the  drama  and  philosophy 
appear  that  the  Greeks  seem  to  have  pondered  much  on  the 
problems  of  life.     There  is  no  trace  of  any  such  speculations  in 


LYEIC  POETRY  :    ELEGIAC  AND  IAMBIC  \\TIITEES.      I  5  3 

the  early  iambic  writers  or  the  melic  poets,  whether  writers  of 
choral  poetry,  as  Alcman  or  Stesichorus,  or  of  personal  lyric,  as 
Sappho  and  Alcseus.  Among  the  elegiac  writers  we  find  melo- 
dious jilaints  on  the  necessity  of  death  in  Mimnermus,  and 
querulous  fretfulness  about  the  miseries  of  life  in  Simonides  ; 
but  it  is  not  till  we  come  to  Solon  that  we  see  signs  of  earnest 
thought.  In  Theognis  we  find  that  the  poet  marvels  at  Zeus, 
Avho  possesses  honour  and  might,  and  yet  treats  the  just  and  the 
unjust  alike  (373) ;  how  do  the  gods  expect  any  one  to  worship 
them  if  they  continue  this  course'?  (743).  The  conclusion  is 
that  the  will  of  Heaven  is  not  plain,  nor  the  way  in  which  a 
man  should  walk  to  please  the  immortals  (743)- 

To  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.  also  belong  Demo- 
docus  of  Leros  and  Phocylides  of  Miletus.  About  the  former 
we  know  nothing,  except  that  he  wrote  iambics  and  epigrams, 
of  which  latter  one  served  to  suggest  to  Porson  his  verses  on 
Hermann.  Demodocus  said,  "  The  Chians  are  bad ;  not  one 
here  and  one  there,  but  all,  except  Procles,  and  Procles  is  a 
Chian."  With  similar  wit  he  attacked  the  Milesians,  of  whom 
he  said  that  they  were  not  stupid,  but  they  acted  stupidly. 
Among  the  elegiacs  of  Phocylides  we  find  a  couplet  which, 
with  the  substitution  of  Lerian  for  Chian,  is  word  for  word  the 
same  as  that  of  Demodocus.  From  this  it  is  inferred  that  the 
two  poets  engaged  in  a  warfare  of  wit,  and  that  in  these  two 
couplets  we  have  the  attack  and  retort.  But  for  the  credit  of 
Greek  humour  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  inference,  which  has 
no  basis  except  the  existence  of  the  two  couplets,  is  erroneous. 
Phocylides,  of  whose  life  nothing  is  known,  wrote  in  hexa- 
meters as  well  as  in  elegiacs.  Usually  his  utterances  in  hexa- 
meters were  brief  and  gnomic ;  but  we  have  a  longer  poem, 
which  was  a  satire  on  women,  conceived  in  the  same  strain  and 
form  as  that  of  Simonides.  Phocylides,  however,  instead  of  ten, 
has  four  classes  of  women,  one  of  which  is  derived  by  extraction 
from  the  dog,  another  from  the  bee,  another  from  the  sow,  and 
the  fourth  from  the  mare.  The  shorter  utterances  are  good, 
practical  common  sense,  and  as  far  removed  from  being  poetry 
as  possible.  A  small  city  well  governed,  he  saj'S,  is  better  than 
a  Nineveh  (5).  Birth  is  no  good  if  a  man  can  speak  neither 
pleasantly  nor  sensibly  (4).  First  get  a  living,  then  think  about 
improving  yourself  (10). 

Under  the  name  of  Phocylides  there  passed,  until  the  six- 
teenth century,  a  long  poem  in  hexameters  of  200  verses,  con- 
taining a  string  of  moral  precepts,  "The  useful  poetry  of 
Phocylides,"  as  it  is  entitled  in  some  manuscripts,  p  arranged 


154  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

in  a  very  disorderly  and  disconnected  manner,  is  not  unfra. 
quently  ungramraatical,  is  mixed  in  its  vocabulary,  and  contains 
many  sentiments  quite  foreign  to  Greek  thought  and  ethics.  It 
was  this  last  fact  which  aroused  the  suspicions  of  Sylburg  in 
the  .sixteenth  century,  who,  however,  only  ventured  to  point  out 
that  some  lines  were  probably  not  tlie  work  of  Phocylides,  but 
of  a  Christian  writer.  Joseph  Scaliger  declared  the  whole  poem 
to  be  a  forgery  and  the  work  of  some  Christian  or  Jewish  writer, 
but,  after  contenting  himself  with  throwing  out  the  hint,  left  it 
for  some  one  else  to  work  out.  This  Jacob  Bernays  did  ( Ueber 
das  phokylideisclie  Gedicht,  Berlin,  1856),  and  showed  that 
although  there  are  many  traces  of  Jewish  beliefs  {e.g.  84, 139,  140, 
147,  207),  there  is  none  of  any  acquaintance  with  the  New  Testa- 
ment. The  poem,  then,  may  be  set  down  as  the  work  of  a  Greek- 
speaking  Jew,  who  lived  probably  not  before  the  second  century 
B.C.  The  place  of  its  origin  seems  likely  to  have  been  Alexandria, 
for  it  was  there  that  the  Jews  came  most  in  contact  with  Greek 
learning.  The  object  of  the  author  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
a  literary  forgery,  such  as  have  been  famous  in  modern  times, 
for  there  is  no  attempt  to  imitate  the  style  of  Phocylides  or  the 
brevity  of  his  utterances.  Eather  the  writer  seems  to  have 
been  so  concerned  with  winning  acceptance  for  the  morality  he 
preached  as  to  be  willing  to  sacrifice  the  fame  of  authorship, 
if  only  the  name  of  Phocylides  would  gain  a  hearing  for  him. 
The  decline  of  the  Alexandrine  school  removed  an  effectual 
check  on  the  circulation  of  forgeries  of  this  and  other  kinds, 
and  we  may  thus  probably  date  the  pseudo-Phocylidea. 

The  claim  of  Hipponax  to  fame  is  based  on  the  invention  of 
a  new  kind  of  metre,  the  choliarabus  or  scazon.  It  is  in  reality 
the  iambic  line  with  the  substitution  of  a  spondee  or  trochee  for 
an  iambus  in  the  last  foot.  This  change  gives  the  line  a  limping 
effect — whence  the  name  choliambus  or  scazon — and  deprives  it 
of  all  beauty,  thus  making  it  the  appropriate  vehicle  for  the 
unlovely  contents  with  which  Hipponax  charged  it.  Appropriate 
as  the  irietre  was  to  the  use  he  put  it  to,  its  essential  deformity 
prevent(»d  it  from  becoming  a  favourite  or  common  form  of  verse, 
except  among  fable  writers  such  as  Babrius.  Hipponax  flourished 
about  B.c,  540  as  we  learn  from  the  Parian  Marble  (42).  He 
was  born  at  Ephesus,  and  seems  to  have  been  expelled  thence. 
Possibly  he  may  have  attacked  the  governor  of  the  city  in  his 
verses,  and  have  therefore  been  turned  out ;  but  we  have  nothing 
but  conjecture  to  rely  on  for  this.  From  Ephesus  he  went  to 
Clazomense,  and  there  he  seems  to  have  spent  the  rest  of  hia 
life,  with  no  very  pleasant  feelings   towards  his   old   homei 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC  AT  COURT.  I  5  5 

From  Clazomenae  lie  was  not  expelled,  but  he  spent  a  large  part 
of  his  time  in  writing  and  declaiming  defamatory  verses  against 
most  people  he  came  in  contact  with.  His  person  seems  to  have 
been  remarkably  ugly  :  this,  which  is  hard  at  all  times,  was  par- 
ticularly so  for  a  Greek,  for  whom  nothing — intellect,  virtue,  or 
wealth — could  redeem  this  defect.  In  the  case  of  Hipponax  it 
was  doubly  unfortunate,  for  it  gave  the  enemies  he  made  by  his 
<rerses  an  invaluable  means  of  attack,  and  one  which  a  sculptor, 
such  as  Bupalus,  could  turn  to  great  account.  The  merits  of 
this  encounter  between  scazons  and  sculptors  are  unknown  to 
us,  as  also  is  the  result.  Whether  the  poverty  which  Hipponax 
complains  of  was  much  exaggerated  by  him  or  not  is  uncertain, 
and  we  are  equally  ignorant  of  the  date  and  manner  of  his  death. 
In  addition  to  the  scazon,  parody  is  put  down  to  his  invention, 
but  before  him  Asius  had  written  parodies.  As  Archilochus 
wrote  iambics  and  used  them  against  his  enemies,  it  is  usual  to 
compare  Hipponax  with  him.  But  Arcliilochus  was  a  man  of 
education,  refinement,  and  genius,  and  he  was  a  poet ;  whereas 
Hipponax  possessed  none  of  these  qualities.  His  language  is 
that  of  the  gutter  when  it  is  not  that  of  the  brothel ;  his  vitu- 
peration is  noisy  and  not  effective  ;  his  parodies,  such  as  we 
have,  possess  no  humour. 

Of  Ananius.  a  writer  of  parodies  in  iambics,  scarcely  anything 
is  known.  He  is  said  to  have  been  less  personal  than  Hipponax  ; 
but  there  seems  to  have  been  some  difficulty  in  deciding  whether 
the  works  ascribed  to  him  were  by  him  or  by  Hipponax. 
Amongst  other  writers  of  elegiacs  or  iambics  in  later  times  may 
be  mentioned  the  tragedian  Ion  of  Chios ;  Evenus  of  Paros,  the 
Bophist :  Critias,  one  of  the  thirty  tyrants  ;  Hermesianax  of  Colo- 
phon; Hermippus,  Herodas,  and  Kerkidas  of  Megalopolis, 


CHAPTER  V. 

MBHO     AT     COURT. 

In  the  verses  of  Theognis  and  Alcseus  we  hare  seen  how  oli- 
garchy and  tyranny  fell  out,  and  democracy — such  as  it  was  in 
ancient  times — came  by  its  own.  Democracy  having  triumphed, 
did  not  prohibit  freedom  of  speech,  and  the  oligarchs  gave  vent 
in  their  verses  to  tlie  feelings  which  exile,  confiscation,  and  loss 
of  power  roused  in  their  breasts.     It  is  only  from  Solon's  verses 


156  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

that  we  see  the  other  side  of  the  shield,  and  learn  to  understand 
how  under  oligarchy  the  people  were  robbed  of  their  land,  driven 
from  their  native  country,  and  sold  into  slavery.  But  demo- 
cracy did  not  triumph  everywhere ;  in  various  cities  tyrants 
established  themselves  and  their  dynasties  with  more  or  less  per- 
manence. The  first  use  to  which  they  put  the  wealth  that  came 
into  their  hands  by  usurpation,  was  to  fortify  their  position  by 
means  of  mercenaries  ;  the  next,  to  surround  themselves  with 
all  the  splendour  which  art  and  literature  could  lend  to  their 
bad  eminence.  Thus  melic  poetry,  which  had  been  originally 
attracted  by  the  fame  which  Sparta  could  extend  to  genius, 
now  left  Sparta  "  in  gilded  courts  to  dwell."  Some  tyrants, 
as  the  Pisistratidse  at  Athens,  turned  the  resources  of  art  to  the 
adornment  of  the  city  over  which  they  exercised  their  unlawful 
rule.  But  most  tyrants,  as  those  of  Samos  and  of  Syracuse, 
required  artists  to  celebrate,  whether  in  marble  or  in  poetry, 
their  own  virtues,  magnificence,  exploits,  and  victories  in  the 
national  games  of  Hellas.  In  both  cases,  however,  what  melic 
poetry  now  shows  us  is  no  longer  the  spirit  animating  a  nation, 
as  in  Tyrtseus,  but  the  luxury  of  court.  The  tyrant  was  now 
the  state  ;  the  sufferings  or  the  aspirations  of  the  people  could 
find  no  voice,  and  naturally  tj^rannicidal  verses,  such  as  those  of 
Theognis  or  Alcaeus,  no  hearing. 

"We  may  form  some  idea  of  the  force  which  the  attractions  of 
court  exercised  when,  remembering  the  difficulties  and  dangers 
of  ancient  travelling,  we  learn  that  Ibycus  was  drawn  from  his 
native  town  in  Italy,  Ehegium,  across  land  and  sea  to  Samos. 
Beyond  this  fact  we  know  little  of  the  life  of  Ibycus.  He 
seems  to  have  spent  some  time  in  Himera  and  Catana,  and 
may,  as  is  conjectured,  have  gone  to  Samos  on  the  invitation  of 
the  tyrant  .5^aces,  for  the  purpose  of  educating  the  young  Poly- 
crates.  But  to  decide  this  we  ought  to  know  the  date  of  Ibycus, 
which  cannot  be  given  more  precisely  than  that  he  lived  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.  The  story  of  his  death, 
according  to  Suidas,  is  that  he  was  plundered  and  killed  by 
robbers.  While  dying  he  pointed  to  some  cranes  flying  over- 
head, and  declared  that  they  would  be  his  avengers.  The 
robbers  returned  to  the  neighbouring  town,  the  name  of  which 
Suidas  does  not  give,  and  were  sitting  in  the  theatre,  when  one 
of  them,  seeing  a  crane,  remarked  jeeringly  to  his  fellows, 
"  There  is  one  of  Ibycus'  avengers."  This  was  overheard,  and, 
as  Ibycus  had  disappeared  in  a  remarkable  manner,  the  men 
were  seized,  made  to  confess,  and  executed.  This  account  has 
an  air  of  improbability  about  it,  the  more  so  because  it  is  a  type 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC  AT  COURT.  I  5  ; 

of  story  not  uncommon  in  folk-lore.  "When,  further,  we  find 
that  the  earliest  authority  for  it  is  an  epigram  by  Antijiater  of 
Sidon,  "who  lived  about  a  hundred  years  b.c.,  i.e.  four  hundred 
years  after  the  fact  which  he  professes  to  relate,  we  liave  very 
good  reason  for  doubting  tlie  accuracy  of  the  story.  The  origin 
of  the  tale  as  applied  to  Ibycus  we  are  not  in  a  position  to 
trace ;  but  the  name  of  the  poet  bears  sufficient  resemblance 
to  the  Greek  word  ibi/kes,  which  means  birds  of  some  kind,  to 
make  it  probable  that  a  false  etymology  attracted  this  floating 
etory  to  the  name  of  Ibycus. 

We  have  very  few  fragments  by  Ibycus,  and  very  little  in- 
formation about  his  work  in  ancient  authors.  Consequently 
there  is  considerable  doubt  as  to  the  character  of  his  poems  and 
the  occasions  on  which  they  were  delivered.  That  some  of  his 
Work  must  have  been  of  the  same  nature  as  the  "  epic  lyric  " 
of  Stesichorus  seems  to  be  shown  by  the  fact  that  ancient 
critics  were  doubtful  whether  certain  fragments  were  by  Ibycus 
or  Stesichorus.  Further,  the  metre,  the  length  of  the  strophes, 
and  the  large  number  of  mythical  allusions  in  the  fragments 
of  Ibycus,  show  that  in  method  Ibycus  followed  Stesichorus. 
But  side  by  side  with  these  pieces  of  evidence  we  find  in  the 
fragments  indications  of  a  wide  difference  between  the  two 
poets.  It  seems  reasonable,  therefore,  to  conclude,  that  whilst 
Ibycus  was  in  Sicily  he  was  influenced  by  Stesichorus,  and 
wrote  "  epic  lyric  "  such  as  his  master  wrote,  and  as  the  Sicilians 
had  been  accustomed  to  hear  from  Stesichorus.  But  to  endea- 
vour, on  the  hints  afforded  by  casual  and  doubtful  mention  of 
mythical  names,  to  determine  the  subject  and  the  titles  of 
poems  of  which  we  have  only  the  most  inconsiderable  fragments, 
and  which  only  conjecturally  come  under  the  head  of  "  epic 
lyric,"  is  an  attempt  which  not  even  Welcker  or  Flach  can 
induce  us  to  share  in. 

In  Samos  Ibycus  seems  to  have  modelled  himself  on  Anacreon, 
who  had  come  to  the  court  of  Polycrates  before  him,  as  in  Sicily 
on  Stesichorus.  Love  and  wine  were  the  themes  which  the 
luxurious  surroundings  and  the  native  taste  of  Anacreon  prompted 
him  to  sing  of ;  and  though  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  tliat 
Ibycus  sang  of  wine,  love  was  the  never-ending  burden  of  his 
melodies.  In  the  ardour  and  violence  of  his  passion^Jbycus, 
according  to  Cicero  (Tusc.  iv.  33.  71),  far  outstripped  Anacreon. 
Stesichorus  had  treated  of  love  in  his  poems,  but  in  his  poetry 
it  had  either  been  subordinate  to  the  epic  interest  of  his  lyric, 
or,  if  it  had  formed  the  main  subject  of  some  of  his  poems,  aa 
it  probably  did  in  the  Radina  and  the  Cahjca,  it  was  treated 


158  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

of  by  him  in  narrative  form,  and  he  related  the  hopeless  love  ol 
some  imaginary  hero  or  heroine.  But  Ibycus  treated  of  love, 
not  in  a  narrative,  but  in  a  lyric  strain.  It  was  his  own  feeling 
which  he  was  pouring  forth  in  his  verses ;  and  although  he 
sought  for  parallels  in  ancient  story,  and  interwove  mythological 
incidents  into  his  odes  in  the  fashion  of  Pindar,  the  source  and 
the  subject  of  his  song  were  his  own  emotions.  In  short,  in 
passing  from  Sicily  to  Samos,  he  left  behind  the  somewhat  cold 
and  artificial  mode  '  f  conception  which  characterised  Stesi- 
chorus,  and  entered  the  glowing  atmosphere  which  developed 
.^ohan  lyric. 

In  one  important  point,  however,  the  melic  of  Ibycus  differed 
from  that  of  Lesbos ;  his  odes  were  choral,  whereas  those  of 
Alcaeus  and  Sappho  were  for  solo  delivery  ;  and  this  raises  the 
difficult  question,  how  did  Ibycus  reconcile  his  subject  with  the 
occasions  and  manner  of  choral  execution  1  In  his  attempt  to 
fuse  the  expression  of  the  personal  feelings  of  the  lyric  poet 
with  that  of  the  sentiments  associated  with  a  public  festival 
or  ceremonial,  Ibycus  reminds  us  of  Alcman,  who  in  Sparta 
attempted  the  same  experiment,  and  it  is  natural  to  conjecture 
that  Ibycus  set  to  work  in  the  same  way  as  Alcman.  But  there 
are  no  traces  in  the  few  fragments  we  possess  of  any  such 
addresses  of  the  poet  to  the  chorus  or  individual  members  of 
the  chorus  as  are  found  in  Alcman's  odes,  and  nothing  in  any 
ancient  authority  to  support  the  conjecture.  The  suggestion 
that  these  choral  odes  were  composed  and  sung  in  honour  of 
the  victors  in  contests  of  personal  beauty,  such  as  were  indeed 
held  in  various  Greek  cities,  seems  to  be  rebutted  by  the  con- 
sideration that  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  the  existence  of 
such  contests  in  Samos,  and  that  such  contests  were  for  female 
beauty  only.  The  solution  of  the  difficulty  must  be  sought 
elsewhere.  The  fact  that  the  odes  of  Ibycus  were,  as  is  shown 
by  their  metre,  choral,  and  therefore  performed  in  public,  shows 
that  the  young  men  who  were  thus  celebrated  had  achieved 
some  success  which  called  for  public  congratulation  ;  and  it 
seems  easiest  to  suppose  that  this  success  was  in  the  public 
games,  and  that  the  odes  thus  resembled  the  encomia  and  epi- 
nikia  which  Pindar  wrote. 

Few  as  the  fragments  by  Ibycus  are,  they  give  us  a  high 
opinion  of  his  poetical  merit ;  and  small  as  most  of  them  are, 
they  bear  the  mark  of  grace  and  beauty.  In  reading  them  we 
are  transported  into  a  region  of  sweet  sounds  and  beautiful 
sights.  "We  are  surrounded  by  roses,  violets,  and  myrtles  (6)  ; 
there   are  kingfishers  (8)  in  the  flowing   streams   which  run 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC  AT  COURT.  I  $  g 

through  maidens'  gardens  (i);  the  nightingales  (7)  sing  as  the 
stars  shine  the  long  night  through  (3) ;  all  breathes  spring, 
and  joy,  and  peace,  except  the  poet's  heart,  where  f  blast  as  of 
Boreas  rages  beneath  the  lightning  (i). 

Among  the  literary  consequences  of  the  introduction  of 
tyranny  into  the  system  of  Greek  politics  was  not  only  the 
crystallisation  of  choral  poetry  round  tyrants'  courts,  but  also 
the  attraction  thither  of  poets  such  as  Anacreon,  who  wrote 
lyric  songs  after  the  fashion  of  the  ^olian  ode.  To  assign  this 
centripetal  force  as  the  sole  cause  of  this  phenomenon  would, 
however,  be  an  inadequate  explanation  ;  we  must  consider  the 
negative  as  well  as  the  positive  conditions,  that  is,  why  lyric 
song  did  not  survive  under  democracies  on  the  fall  of  oligarchy, 
as  well  as  why  it  migrated  to  tyrannies.  That  department  of 
melic  poetry  of  which  the  greatest  representatives  were  Sappho 
and  Alcaeus,  and  which,  to  distinguish  it  from  choral  melic,  we 
will  call  lyric  song,  although  its  roots  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Bongs  of  the  people,  attained  to  literary  form  and  merit  only  in 
oligarchies.  It  was  only  among  the  ruling  classes  of  oligarchi- 
cally  governed  states  that  there  existed  the  literary  and  musical 
cultivation  necessary  for  the  production  of  high  work,  and  for 
the  intelligent  appreciation  and  encouragement  of  it  when 
produced.  Tlie  public  to  which  the  lyric  poet  thus  addressed 
himself  was  narrow,  but  it  contained  all  whose  criticism  was 
worth  obtaining,  and  whose  praise  the  poet  cared  for.  Further, 
the  very  narrowness  of  the  poet's  circle,  in  which  all  Avere  ac- 
quaintances and  most  were  friends,  was  the  most  favourable 
condition  under  which  a  kind  of  poetry,  whose  essence  is  the 
expression  of  the  poet's  personal  emotions,  could  possibly  be 
developed ;  for  the  poet's  mode  of  life  was  that  of  his  hearers, 
his  feelings  were  their  feelings,  his  prejudices  their  prejudices, 
his  politics,  when  he  touched  on  them,  his  beliefs  and  his  mo- 
rality, the  same  as  theirs.  All  this,  when  oligarchy  was  over- 
thrown, w.ts  changed.  At  first  sight  it  might  appear  as  though 
there  were  no  reason  why,  when  democracy  succeeded  oligarchy, 
lyric  song  should  not  have  continued  to  flourish,  if  only  the  poet 
would  address  himself  to  the  new  public  which  was  grow- 
ing, and  seek  his  inspiration  in  the  wider  circle  of  emotions  and 
beliefs  which  all  Greeks  felt  in  common.  But  this  is  to  overlook 
an  important  condition  which  regulated  the  development  of  Greek 
literature,  and  was  the  cause  of  the  difference  in  form  between 
the  literature  of  Greek  and  of  modern  times.  Without  a  public, 
art  and  literature  cannot  exist.  The  manner,  therefore,  in  which 
an  artist  is  brought  into  contact  with  his  public  is  a  matter  of 


l6o  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

the  greatest  importance  in  its  effects  on  the  course  and  form  ol 
literature.  Until  the  time  of  Isocrates,  a  Greek  author  obtained 
publicity,  not  by  means  of  the  multiplication  and  circulation  of 
copies  of  his  works,  but  by  means  of  the  oral  delivery  of  his 
productions.  In  the  case  of  choral  poetry,  the  performance  by 
the  chorus  constituted  this  oral  delivery ;  and  as  choruses  were 
performed  in  public  and  on  public  occasions,  the  audience  con- 
sisted of  all  the  citizens  of  the  state,  and  was  the  largest  to 
•which  an  author  could  address  himself.  In  the  case  of  lyric 
song  the  poet  was  his  own  performer ;  the  occasion  was  private, 
not  public,  being  some  banquet  at  which  the  author's  friends 
were  gathered  together,  and  his  public  was  consequently  con- 
siderably smaller.  It  is  this  fact  which  mainly  explains  the 
decay  of  lyric  song  under  democracy.  Under  an  oligarchy  the 
poet's  public  was  small,  but  it  was  practically  in  intelligence 
and  power  the  state.  When  democracy  supervened,  the  oligar- 
chical classes  no  longer  had  the  monopoly  of  government  and 
culture ;  they  sank  into  the  subordinate  position  of  a  party,  and 
of  a  party  out  of  joint  with  the  times.  The  audience  of  the 
poet  thus  became  narrow  in  all  senses  of  the  word  ;  and  although 
Theognis  was  an  elegiac  and  not  a  melic  poet,  he  shows  in  the 
confined  and  lifeless  flight  of  his  verse  how  evilly  a  clique 
reacts  on  an  artist.  Within  the  area,  then,  of  democracy,  lyric 
song  disappeared,  and  in  tyrannies  it  survived,  for  there  the 
court  formed  a  centre  of  art  and  culture,  and  provided  a  j>ublic 
whose  appreciation  was  for  some  poets  as  powerful  an  allure- 
ment as  were  the  more  material  rewards  offered  by  the  tyrant 
to  others.  But  before  proceeding  to  consider  the  effect  which 
the  change  from  oligarchy  to  tyranny  had  on  lyric  song,  we 
have  to  notice  a  fact  which  confirms  and  completes  our  theory 
of  the  disappearance  of  lyric  song  under  democracy.  It  is  this, 
that  as  soon  as  in  democracy  occasions  and  means  were  found 
by  which  the  lyric  poet  could  reach  the  great  public,  i.e.  the 
whole  body  of  citizens,  then  great  poets  were  forthcoming  to 
give  expression  to  emotions  and  beliefs  which  all  their  fellow- 
citizens,  and  not  merely  a  clique,  could  feel  and  understand. 
The  contrivance  which,  under  democracy,  put  the  poet  into 
direct  relation  with  the  great  public,  was  the  theatre :  lyric 
song,  choral  poetry,  and  iambics  were  fused  and  transmuted 
into  drama ;  and  in  the  melic  parts  of  tragedy  we  hear  the  lyric 
poet  uttering,  to  an  audience  greater  than  that  which  he  ad- 
dressed, his  meditations  on  the  meaning  of  life. 

Anacreon,  who  was  born  of  good  family  and  connected  with 
Solon,  was  a  native  of  the  island  of  Teos.     When  the  tide  oi 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC  AT  COURT.  I  6  I 

Persian  invasion  swept  over  Teos  as  over  other  islands  oEf  the 
coast  of  Asia  Minor,  Anacreon  seems  to  have  emigrated  with 
his  fellow-citizens  to  Abdera  in  Thrace.  How  long  he  remained 
there  we  do  not  know,  hut  thence  lie  proceeded  to  Samos,  probably 
a  few  years  before  Ibycus  arrived  there.  From  the  time  that 
Polycrates  was  a  boy  until  the  time  when  he  was  treacherously 
murdered  by  the  Persian  satrap  Oroetes,  Anacreon  enjoyed  the 
friendship  and  confidence  of  the  tyrant  of  Samos.  Doubtless 
it  was  as  a  minister  to  the  pleasures  and  as  an  ornament  to  the 
court  of  Polycrates  that  Anacreon  chiefly  figured  in  Samos,  but 
he  also  exercised  an  occasional  influence  over  the  greedy  and 
cruel  policy  of  the  despot.  After  the  assassination  of  Polycrates 
Anacreon  went  to  Athens,  though  whether  he  went  straight 
there  or  first  went  to  Asia  Minor  or  to  Abdera,  is  uncertain. 
In  any  case,  his  reputation  as  a  poet  was  so  well  established  that 
Hipparchus,  the  tyrant  of  Athens,  invited  him  to  his  court,  and 
sent  a  vessel  to  convey  him  thither.  It  was  at  Athens  probably 
that  Anacreon  died,  in  his  eighty-fifth  year,  in  the  enjoyment  of 
a  fresh  and  green  old  age. 

Anacreon  wrote  some  short  hymns  to  the  gods,  but  his  chief 
work,  and  that  on  which  his  reputation  was  based,  comprised 
five  books  of  elegies,  iambics,  and  lyric  song.  He  did  not  open 
np  any  new  field  in  lyric,  but  contented  himself  in  following  with 
less  genius  and  less  earnestness  the  paths  which  Archilochus 
and  the  Lesbian  poets  had  made  before  him.  At  the  same  time 
he  availed  himself  of  all  the  technical  improvements  in  metre 
and  music  with  which  successive  generations  of  poets  had  en- 
riched their  art,  to  a  degree  and  with  a  skill  in  which  Sappho 
alone  surpassed  him.  It  is  in  finish,  not  force,  in  workmanship, 
not  genius,  in  the  lightness  of  his  touch,  not  earnestness  of 
feeling,  that  the  merit  of  Anacreon  lies.  Dionysius  (de  Comp. 
Verb.  23)  selects  him,  after  Sappho,  as  representative  of  tlie 
"  smooth"  style  or  harmony.  On  this  authority  we  may  take 
it  that  in  the  qualities  of  melody  Anacreon  excelled.  Unfortu- 
nately the  few  notes  which  are  left  are  so  scattered  that  we  can- 
not reconstruct  the  melody.  But  in  perfect  music  there  is,  as 
well  as  melody,  harmony ;  and  in  the  fragments  of  a  perfect 
poet,  although  time  may  obliterate  much,  harmony  is  left,  though 
the  melody  be  past  reconstruction.  Thus  Sappho  struck  chords 
which  still  vibrate,  but  in  Anacreon  the  melody  has  perished  ; 
harmonies  there  never  were.  This  want  of  depth  in  Anacreon's 
poetry  corresponds  to  and  is  the  result  of  a  want  of  depth  in 
his  nature.  By  tliis  we  do  not  mean  merely  the  absence  of 
anj  reflection  on  the  more  serious  problems  and  aspects  of  lifa 


1 62         HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

There  is  no  obligation  on  the  poet  to  treat  of  such  subjects,  andl 
the  absence  of  such  reflections  does  not  constitute  a  poetical 
delinquency.  No  subject  is  forbidden  the  artist  which  he  can 
make  matter  of  art;  but  having  chosen  his  subject,  he  must  treat 
it  as  art.  He  must  deal  with  morality,  if  he  chooses  the  sub- 
ject, or  politics,  not  as  a  moralist  or  a  politician,  but  as  an  artist ; 
and  whether  his  work  be  good  moral  or  political  philosoph) 
or  whether  it  be  bad,  are  considerations  which,  when  settled, 
obviously  do  not  in  the  least  help  us  to  decide  whether  his  work 
is  or  is  not  good  poetry.  It  is  therefore,  on  the  terms  of  art,  no 
charge  against  Anacreon  that  he  did  not  philosophise  on  life, 
and  did  sing  "  the  praise  of  love  and  wine ;  "  but  it  does  detract 
from  his  worth  as  a  poet  that  his  notes  are  not  full,  and  that 
his  song  lacks  expression. 

Of  the  three  qualities  necessary  to  poetry,  that  it  should  be 
"  simple,  sensuous,  and  impassioned,"  Anacreon's  work  possesses 
the  first  only  in  any  eminent  degree ;  and  it  is  in  the  compara- 
tive failure  of  the  other  two  that  his  weakness  consists.     Images- 
are  rare  in  Anacreon,  and  in  this  rarity  we  have  a  partial  expla- 
nation of  his  inferiority  to  Sappho,  who  also  sang  the  praise 
of  love,  and  whose  smallest  fragments  may  contain  a  picture,  a 
i  vision,  and  a  thing  of  beauty.   The  most  serious  defect,  however, 
j /is  that  Anacreon  wrote  of  love  and  wine,  the  sources  of  violeni 
'jfemotions,  and  his  poetry  is  inadequately  impassioned.     As  there 
'are  things  to  the  beauty  of  which  a  certain  magnitude  is  neces- 
sary, so  for  the  emotioiis  a  certain  intensity  is  requisite ;  and 
this  intensity  Anacreon  failed  of.     There  is  no  impetuosity  in 
his  drinking-songs,  and  no  irresistible  enchantment  in  his  love- 
songs.     Love  and   wine   are  amusements  with   him,    and  the 
amusements  of  a  man  who  has  nothing  to  do  but  amuse  himself. 
They  aroused  only  superficial  feelings  in  him — there  was  nothing 
more  to  arouse — and  his  expression  of  them  is  superficial      His 
touch  was  light,  but  not  tender. 

Anacreon's  defects  as  a  poet  made  for  his  success  as  a  court 
bard.  In  a  court  in  which  ministers  of  pleasure  of  both  sexes 
were  collected  from  all  parts  of  Europe  and  Asia  Minor  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  tyrant,  Anacreon  naturally  attained  a  high 
position.  His  verses  were  not  too  high  for  the  intelligence, 
or  too  deep  for  the  feelings,  of  his  patron  and  his  audience. 
His  character,  too,  was  equally  well  suited  to  his  surroundings. 
While  avoiding  all  excess — he  lived  to  be  eighty-five — he  is 
described  (Critias  in  Ath.  xiii,  6ood)  as  charming  in  manner,  a 
i  deceiver  of  women,  and  the  life  of  a  drinking-party.  His  con- 
'    quests  were  as  facile  as  his  verses,  and  his  potations  as  deep 


LYKic  poetry:  melic  at  court.  163 

as  his  poetry.  Anacreon  reflects  life  at  court  as  faithfully  as 
Alcseus  does  the  life  of  an  oligarch.  But  the  difi"ererce  between 
the  latter,  who  wrote  "  because  the  numbers  came,  *  and  the 
court  poet,  who  celebrated  in  lyric  verse  the  reigning  beauty  of 
either  sex  from  time  to  time,  was  great.  In  Alcaeus  or  Sappho 
we  have  a  poet  singing  songs  unbidden — 

"  Till  the  world  is  wrought 
To  sympathy  with  hopes  and  fears  it  heeded  not," 

In  Anacreon  we  have  a  poet  who  wrote,  not  to  command,  in- 
deed, bxit  on  all  occasions  ;  and  the  poet  who  writes  indifferently 
on  any  occasion  is  in  danger  of  writing  indifferently  on  alL 
However,  the  poetry  of  Anacreon  marks  the  highest  point  to 
which  the  atmosphere  of  tyranny  would  allow  lyric  song  to 
grow ;  and  that  it  grew  so  high  and  so  shapely  was  because  the 
temperament  of  Anacreon  harmonised  so  well  with  the  demands 
of  his  post  and  his  patron.  The  passion  of  a  Sappho  would 
have  found  little  sympathy,  or  the  pride  of  an  Alcaeus  little 
room,  in  such  a  court  as  that  of  Polycrates.  Anacreon's  nature, 
less  deep  and  less  lofty,  was  adapted  to  the  environment,  and 
was  further  endowed  with  the  gift  of  a  finished  literary  style. 
But  this  conjunction  of  qualities  did  not  occur  afterwards  or 
elsewhere,  and  tyranny,  though  it  promised  to  support  lyric 
song,  proved  more  barren  of  substance  than  did  democracy. 

Simonides,  as  we  learn  from  an  inscription  (Fr.  147B)  which 
he  wrote  to  commemorate  the  victory,  in  a  choral  contest  at 
Athens,  of  the  tribe  Antiochis  with  a  poem  of  his  composing, 
was  the  son  of  Leopredes,  and  was  eighty  years  of  age  at  the 
time  of  this  victory.  As  he  mentions  the  archonship  of  Adei- 
mantus  as  the  date  of  this  event,  it  follows  that  he  was  born  in 
the  year  B.C.  556.  The  place  of  his  birth  was  a  small  island, 
Ceos,  one  of  the  Cyclades.  The  inhabitants  of  the  island  were 
lonians,  bu*  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Peloponnesus  affected  the 
Ceans  in  various  ways,  and,  what  is  important  for  our  purpose, 
familiarised  them  with  the  choral  worship  of  Apollo,  and  with 
the  custom  of  parthenia  or  choruses  sung  by  girls.  The  culti- 
vation in  Ceos  of  choral  poetry  decided  the  line  which  Simonides' 
impulse  to  poetry  was  to  take.  At  an  early  age  he  was  con- 
cerned in  the  production  of  choruses,  and  fulfilled  the  duties  of 
choir-master.  Although,  unlike  Anacreon,  he  possessed  some 
patriotism,  and  celebrated  his  country  in  his  song  (223),  he  waa 
not  content  to  remain  for  ever  a  choir-master  in  Ceos,  but  was 
attracted,  by  visions  of  fame,  fortune,  and  themes  greater  than 
Ceos  cou]  i  afford,  to  travel  far  and  wide  to  brilliant  courts  and 


164  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

centres  of  cultivation.  In  Athens  the  tyrant  Pisistratus  had 
been  succeeded  by  his  sons  Hippias  and  Hipparchus,  and  they 
were  carrying  on  the  work,  which  their  father  had  begun,  of 
decorating  Athens  and  educating  the  Athenians  by  means  of 
everything  which  art,  literature,  and  learning  could  supply.  lu 
pursuit  of  this  policy  the  Pisistratidae  freely  lavished  money, 
and  Simonides  received  large  sums  from  them. 

The  form  of  choral  poetry  which  at  this  time  was  chiefly  cul- 
tivated at  Athens  was  the  dithyramb.  This,  which  at  once  was 
a  religious  service,  a  form  of  literature,  and  an  entertainment  for 
the  people,  was  not  in  its  origin,  nature,  or  object  specially  sub- 
servient to  tyranny.  It  was  not  performed  for  the  gratification 
or  the  honour  of  the  tyrant ;  nor  was  it  merely  an  entertain  • 
ment  for  the  people,  to  keep  them  in  good-humour  with  tha 
tyranny  ;  it  was  also  an  entertainment  by  the  people.  As  in 
later  times  dramatists  competed  for  a  prize  at  the  festivals  of 
Dionysus,  and  each  poet  applied  to  the  state  for  a  choregus  to 
put  his  play  upon  the  stage,  and  the  chorus  which  performed  in 
the  play  was  furnished  by  one  of  the  tribes  ;  so  in  the  times  of 
the  Pisistratidae  and  of  the  dithyramb,  the  author  of  a  dithy- 
ramb applied  for  a  choregus  and  a  tribe  which  should  supply  a 
chorus  to  learn,  rehearse,  and  finally  perform  his  dithyramb  in 
the  contests  at  the  festivals  of  Dionysus.  Wlien  the  drama 
developed  out  of  the  dithyramb,  this  manner  of  procedure  con- 
tinued ;  and  this  explains  how  it  was  that  in  the  time  of  the 
drama  the  choregus,  although  he  bore  all  the  expenses  entailed 
by  the  maintaining,  teaching,  and  dressing  of  those  members  of 
his  tribe  who  formed  the  dramatic  chorus,  had  not  to  bea:  any 
part  of  the  rest  of  the  expense  incurred  in  the  production  of  the 
play.  The  prize  which  the  successful  poet  in  a  dithyramb  con- 
test won  was  not  any  pecuniary  benefit  to  the  victor,  for  it  was 
dedicated  by  him  as  a  votive  off'ering  to  the  god.  The  gold 
which  Simonides  carried  off  from  Athens  came  to  him  as  gifts, 
either  from  the  tyrant,  who  was  gratified  to  have  so  good  a  poet 
compete  in  his  city,  or  possibly  from  rich  citizens  for  whom 
Simonides  had  specially  composed  poems  in  celebration  of  some 
victory  they  had  achieved  in  the  public  games  or  in  the  memory 
of  some  relative  they  had  lost.  The  epinikia  which  he  thus 
composed  remained  popular  in  Athens  lor  generations,  and  were 
in  the  mouths  of  the  Athenians  in  the  time  of  Aristophanes.* 
"With  his  competitors,  amongst  whom  at  Athens  was  Lasus, 
Simonides  never  seems  to  have  got  on  well.  He  was  a  formid- 
able rival  not  only  in  the  exercise  of  his  art,  but  even  mora 

^  Bq.  407 ;  Nub.  1356. 


LYRIC  poetry:  melic  at  court.  165 

to  in  the  tact,  the  ■worldly  wisdom,  and  the  courtly  deference 
which  won  him  so  much  success  in  dealing  with  the  great. 

In  Thessaly,  as  well  as  in  Athens,  Simonides  was  the  guest  of 
tyrants.  "We  still  have  almost  complete  (5)  an  encomium  or 
eulogy  written  by  Simonides  in  honour  of  Scopas  on  his  death. 
Scopas  was  a  tyrant  whose  rule  does  not  seem  to  have  been  light 
nor  his  character  amiable.  But  Simonides,  having  to  eulogise 
him  professionally,  adroitly  and  artistically  steers  between  the 
risk  of  offending  the  Scopadae  and  the  danger  of  exciting  ridi- 
cule by  lauding  virtues  which  the  deceased  had  not.  He  con- 
fines himself  to  generalities  :  perfectly  virtuous  men  do  not 
occur ;  practically  we  have  to  take  the  good  Avith  the  evil.  Pit- 
tacus,  the  sage, much  understated  the  fact  when  he  said  that  it  was 
hard  to  be  good — tliat  is  an  attribute  of  God,  not  man  ;  the  man 
■who  does  not  voluntarily  do  anything  disgraceful  is  much  to  be 
praised,  but  against  destiny,  of  course  no  one  can  fight.  The 
skill  of  this  cannot  be  denied ;  and  although  Simonides  takes 
up  the  dead  Scopas  very  tenderly  and  delicately,  he  cannot  be 
accused  of  servility.  To  only  hint  that  Scopas  had  his  failings 
may  have  been  gross  adulation.  We  do  not  know.  But  having 
to  write  an  encomium  and  to  write  it  for  gold,  Simonides  could 
not  have  well  sold  less  of  his  conscience.  Other  poets  with  less 
sense  of  artistic  propriety  would  have  sold  more.  We  know 
little  about  the  Scopadae,  It  seems  probable  that  the  whole 
dynasty  perished  suddenly  and  together;  and  this  is  perhaps 
the  only  kernel  of  fact  which  is  contained  in  the  story  that 
Scopas  gave  Simonides  half  the  reward  he  expected  for  a  eulogy, 
and  bade  him  apply  to  the  Dioscuri,  whom  Simonides  had  also 
praised  in  the  eulogy,  for  the  other  half.  At  this  moment 
Simonides  was  summoned  from  the  hall  to  speak  with  two 
strangers,  and  no  sooner  was  he  in  the  open  air  than  the  budd- 
ing fell  with  a  crash,  killing  Scopas  and  all  his  family.  The 
Dioscuri  had  paid  their  debt. 

The  Scopadae  were  not  the  only  tyrants  in  Thessaly  that 
Simonides  visited.  He  also  went  to  Larissa,  and  placed  his 
services  at  the  disposal  of  the  Aleuadae,  who  were  maintaining 
secret  and  treacherous  relations  with  the  Persian  king,  and  were 
offering  to  assist  him  in  his  invasion  of  Greece.  From  this 
court  Simonides  went  again  to  the  city  which  was  the  soul  and 
the  centre  of  the  Greek  resistance  to  Persia — Athens — there  to 
celebiate  by  the  epigrams,  on  which  his  fame  principally  rests, 
the  defeat  of  the  Persians  at  Marathon,  at  Salamis,  and  at 
Plataea.  In  Athens  the  democracy  had  triumphed  over  the 
tyranny;  Hipparchus  had  been  slain,  Hippias  had  fled  to  Persia; 


1 66  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

and  Simouides  became  as  much  at  home  under  the  democracy 
as  he  had  been  under  the  tyranny.  He  was  as  intimate  with 
Themistocles  as  with  the  Pisistratidae,  and  he  glorified  the 
assassins  of  Hipparchus  as  readily  and  as  artistically  as  he  had 
honoured  Hipparchus  himself.  His  former  relations  with  the 
tyrants  did  not  prevent  the  Athenians  from  intrusting  him 
with  the  honour  of  celebrating  in  verse  their  victories  over  the 
Persians,  nor  induce  them  to  prefer  the  epigram  on  Marathon 
by  their  own  iEschylus  to  that  written  by  Simonides.  In 
Corinth  and  in  Sparta  he  was  welcomed  as  much  as  in  Athens, 
and  he  made  himself  the  friend  of  the  haughty  Pausanius  as 
successfully  as  he  had  won  the  friendship  of  the  astute  Themi- 
stocles. 

But  at  this  time  art,  literature,  and  culture  found  their  best 
field  and  their  most  munificent  reward  in  Sicily,  at  the  court  of 
Syracuse.  Not  only  was  Epicharmus  performing  his  comedies 
there,  but  ^schylus  voyaged  thither,  and  there  wrote  and  put 
on  the  stage  tragedies,  of  which  some  were  inspired  by  his  visit, 
as  the  Women  of  ^tna,  some  had  been  already  performed  in 
Athens.  To  Syracuse,  also,  Bacchylides,  the  nephew  of  Simo- 
nides, was  drawn,  and,  greater  than  either,  Pindar,  now  only 
a  young  man,  but  great  enough  already  to  defeat  Simonides. 
Between  Simonides  and  Pindar  there  existed  the  same  rivalry, 
embittered  by  personal  feelings,  as  at  Athens  had  intervened  be- 
tween Simonides  and  Lasus  ;  and,  though  the  fragments  of  Simo- 
nides show  no  traces  of  this  rivalry,  it  appears  in  passages  of 
Pindar.  With  Hiero,  however,  the  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  Simo- 
nides was  on  the  best  of  terms,  and  we  find  him  assuring 
Hiero's  wife,  with  the  courtier-like  suavity  which  characterised 
him,  that  wealth  is  before  wisdom.  It  would  not  be  altogether 
fair  to  condemn  Simonides  of  insincerity  in  saying  this,  for 
he  was  the  first  poet  who  wrote  for  gold.  This  shocked  the 
Greeks,  as  teaching  for  pay  also  shocked  them.  Art  and  learn- 
ing were  sacred  things.  It  was  as  disgraceful  to  traffic  in  them 
as  in  beauty.  This  feeling  is  probably  largely  responsible  for  the 
accusations  of  avarice  which  were  made  against  Simonides,  though 
there  was  also  much  in  his  conduct  to  give  countenance  to  the 
charge.  Sicily  he  must  have  found  a  fertile  field,  for  com- 
missiuns  were  not  forthcoming  from  Syracuse  and  Hiero  alone, 
but  from  Agrigentum,  Rhegium,  and  Croton  as  well.  Up 
to  the  latest  year  of  his  life  he  seems  to  have  worked,  and 
his  command  over  the  technical  resources  of  his  art,  his  tact, 
ekill,  and  adroitness  in  managing  his  subject-matter,  seem  to 
have  gained  more   and  more   as  he  gained  more   experience^ 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC  AT  COURT.  1  6^ 

until  he  died  B.C.  467,  in  Syracuse,  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
nine. 

Simonides  was  a  writer  of  choral  poetry,  not  of  lyric  song, 
and  in  his  long  life  he  attained  a  mastery  over  every  form  oif 
choral  nielic.  He  composed  hymns  to  the  gods,  pagans  to 
Apollo,  dithyramhs  in  honour  of  Dionysus,  hyporchemes  with 
their  accompaniment  of  dancing,  prosodia  or  processional 
hymns,  and  parthenia  ;  but  his  poetry  was  not  confinud  to 
the  worship  of  the  gods,  he  applied  it  also  to  honouring  and 
commemorating  men,  both  for  their  public  achievements  and 
their  private  virtues,  and  with  this  object  he  composed  en- 
comia, epinikia,  and  threni  or  dirges,  and  in  addition  to  these 
choral  forms  of  poetry  also  skolia  or  drinking  songs,  elegies,  and 
epigrams.  In  the  domain  of  religious  poetry  Simonides  did  not 
attain  such  celebrity  as  in  the  rest  of  choral  melic.  His  com- 
mand of  language,  his  exquisite  diction,  the  smoothness  and 
sweetness  of  his  style,  his  mastery  over  all  the  technical  re- 
sources of  his  art,  raised  even  his  religious  poetry  to  a  high 
standard  ;  but  this  formal  excellence  could  not  compensate  for 
shallowness  of  feeling  and  the  want  of  profound  conviction. 
But  even  here,  where  his  natural  defects  were  most  conspicuous 
and  most  damaging,  his  grasp  was  so  firm  that  he  set  dithyramb 
on  the  path  it  was  to  follow,  though  he  wrested  it  from  the 
special  service  of  the  ^od  whom  it  was  originally  intended 
to  honour.  We  have  nothing  left  of  his  dithyrambs  except 
the  titles  of  two,  the  Memnon  and  the  Rape  of  Europa,  and 
although  we  have  no  conception  of  the  way  in  which  he  con- 
trived to  harmonise  these  subjects  with  the  form  and  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  dithyramb,  the  titles  are  enough  to  show  that 
Simonides  abandoned  the  custom  of  taking  the  adventures  of 
Dionysus  as  the  subject  of  the  dithyramb.  This  was  a  step  of 
great  importance,  for  it  determined  the  subsequent  history  of 
this  form  of  choral  poetry. 

Thus  even  on  religious  melic  Simonides  left  his  mark,  and 
on  the  rest  of  choral  lyric  he  exercised  even  greater  influence. 
He  elevated  the  threnos  or  dirge  from  the  level  of  monody  to 
the  dignity  of  choral  performance.  He  gave  to  epinikia,  the 
public  celebration  of  a  victory  in  the  national  games,  the  shape 
which  they  were  destined  to  retain.  Encomia,  which  belonged 
to  the  same  genus  as  epinikia,  but  were  laudations  of  a  more 
private  character,  were  the  work  of  his  invention.  In  poetry 
not  choral,  epigram,  though  its  functions  had  been  determined 
by  his  predecessors,  Simonides  exalted  to  a  pinnacle  of  fame  in 
literature  to  which  no  other  poet  could  have  lifted  it     As  it 


1 68  HISTORY    OF    GREEK    LITERATURE. 

was  to  tliese  forms  of  poetry  that  Sinionides  gave  their  make  and 
shape  in  literature,  it  was  in  them  that  he  attained  his  highest 
excellence.  In  epinikia,  smooth  and  finished  as  his  work  was, 
and  high  as  he  ranked,  he  could  not  be  compared  with  Pindar. 
Setting  aside  the  difference  between  the  inspired  and  the  unin- 
spired poet,  we  find  that  even  in  respect  of  style  and  excellence 
of  form  Pindar  was  superior,  though  in  a  different  way,  to  Simo- 
nides ;  for  whereas  Sinionides  shares  with  Anacreon  the  honour 
of  the  second  place  in  representing  the  "smooth  "  style  of  lyric, 
Pindar  occupies  without  rival  the  highest  position  in  the 
"  severe  "  style.  In  encomia,  which  were  a  lower  form  of  art, 
Simonides  achieved  greater  excellence.  These  eulogies  on  people 
who  frequently  had  but  little  worthy  of  eulogy  afforded  admir- 
able opportunities  for  the  exercise  of  the  tact,  courteousness, 
and  knowledge  of  the  world  which  Simonides  possessed  in  an 
eminent  degree,  and  which  explain  both  his  invention  and  his 
successful  cultivation  of  encomia.  In  dirges  or  threni  his  repu- 
tation stood  even  higher :  in  these  poems  not  only  was  the 
Btyle  excellent,  as  always  with  Simonides,  but  that  which  it 
clothed  was  also  excellent.  Simonides'  poetry  rarely  soared 
with  the  bold  flight  of  genius,  but  in  the  threni  it  did  affect  the 
emotions.  It  was  pathetic  and  extremely  moving.  This  form 
of  poetry  Simonides  must  have  cultivated  with  affection — with 
the  affection  which  comes  of  and  to  successful  work ;  for  he 
did  not  content  himself  with  composing  dirges  for  real  persons, 
as,  e.g.  on  the  Scopadse,  but  took  mythical  heroes  and  heroines 
as  subjects.  This  gave  him  more  room  to  work  in,  and  he 
accordingly  produced  better  work.  It  fortunately  happens  that 
we  still  have  a  fragment  of  his  threnos  on  Danae  (37),  amongst 
the  most  beautiful  of  the  bequests  from  Greek  literature 
which  time  has  allowed  to  come  down  to  us.  Acrisius  having 
been  warned  by  an  oracle  that  he  would  meet  his  death  at 
the  hands  of  a  child  born  of  his  daughter  Danae,  committed 
her  and  her  child  Perseus  to  the  waves  in  a  chest  to  perish. 
The  fragment  by  Simonides  pictures  Danae  and  Perseus  in 
the  darkness  of  the  coffer  driven  by  the  wind  over  the  stormy 
sea.  Danae,  with  her  arm  round  her  sleeping  child  and  his  face 
against  hers,  talks  to  him  :  he  sleeps  and  she  is  so  full  of  care  ;  he 
would  not  sleep  if  he  knew  their  danger.  Then  she  says  to  him, 
"  But  sleep,  baby  ;  and  sleep,  sea  and  trouble  too.  Zeus  !  grant 
us  respite  and  forgive  my  prayer."  This  fragment  enables  us 
to  see  for  ourselves  the  two  qualities  which  ancient  critics 
recognised  as  existing  to  a  high  degree  in  Simonides'  poetry — ■ 
hie  clearness  and  his  pathos.     By  clearness  is  meant  the  poet's 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    MELIC  AT  COURT.  I  6p 

power  of  conveying  to  the  reader's  or  hearer's  niiiul  the  very 
picture  -which  the  poet  himself  sees  with  his  mind's  eye.  In 
this  fragment  the  pathos  consists  partly  in  the  picture  of  the 
child  sleeping  "  avec  Tignorance  de  I'ange,"  and  of  the  mother 
talking  to  the  child  of  the  danger  which  he  does  not  under- 
stand. Pathetic,  however,  as  Simonides,  hy  the  testimony  of  this 
fragment,  was,  he  was  probably  inferior  even  in  this  quality  td' 
Pindar,  who  stood  to  him  in  the  same  relation  as  iEschylus  to 
Euripides.  Pathos  has  been  considered  the  special  province  of 
Euripides  as  of  Simonides,  but  the  strength  of  ^schylus  enabled 
him  on  fitting  occasions  to  excel  Euripides  in  intensity  of 
pathos,  as  probably  Pindar's  strength  gave  him  pathetic  powers 
greater,  if  more  rarely  used,  than  those  of  Simonides.  The 
department  of  poetry  in  Avhich  Simonides  stands  without  a  rival 
is  that  of  epigram.  The  glorious  victories  which  the  Greeks 
achieved  over  the  Persians  were  celebrated  by  offerings  to  the 
gods,  and  these  offerings  required  some  inscription  worthy  of 
the  deeds  commemorated,  as  did  also  the  graves  of  the  warriors 
who  fell  nobly  for  their  country.  In  Simonides  was  found  the 
poet  capable  of  composing  the  epigrams  thus  called  for.  His 
success  in  this  form  of  composition  was  due  to  the  quality  of 
self-restraint  that  is  the  chief  merit  of  all  his  poetry.  The 
defeat  of  the  Persian  was  a  theme  on  which  a  contemporary 
would  find  it  difficult  to  be  anything  but  expansive.  It  fur- 
nished Phrynichus  and  ^Eschylus  with  the  material  for  monu- 
ments of  genius  in  the  shape  of  tragedies  depicting  the  down- 
fall of  the  innumerable  host  of  the  barbarians.  The  tribute  of 
tragedy  to  the  heroes  of  Hellas  was  properly  monumental,  but 
in  epigrams,  which  were  themselves  to  be  but  inscriptions  on 
monuments,  whether  to  the  gods  or  to  the  fallen  patriots, 
qualities  of  another  kind  were  required.  Description,  such  as 
was  appropriate  in  tragedy,  was  excluded  by  the  brevity  that 
the  form  of  epigram  necessitated.  Praise,  in  any  direct  form, 
would  be  superfluous,  and  even  offensive,  on  memorials,  and  for 
deeds  which  were  themselves  their  own  praise.  Many  words 
were  to  be  avoided ;  self-restraint  was  above  all  necessary,  and, 
considering  the  pride  of  patriotism,  above  all  difficult.  The  tact 
that  could  select  precisely  what  should  be  said,  and,  saying  little, 
could  yet  say  all,  was  the  prerogative  of  Simonides.  It  was  not 
to  much  genius  as  artistic  feeling,  the  sense  of  propriety  and 
perfect  workmanship,  that  epigram  called  for ;  and  these  quali- 
ties were  precisely  those  in  which  the  excellence  of  Simonides 
consisted.  And  this  may  stand  for  our  judgment  on  the  poetry 
of  Simonides  in  general.     The  praise  which  we  have  accorded 


I/O  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

T.0  him  all  will  admit  to  be  deserved,  and  for  abjudicating  hia 
claims  to  genius  we  have  the  authority  of  Pindar  {01.  ii.  86), 
who,  although  he  was  a  rival  of  Simonides  and  spoke  with 
somewhat  of  the  acerbity  of  rivalry,  was  likely,  even  if  he  struck 
harder  than  a  more  impartial  critic,  not  to  strike  at  the  wrong 
place,  but  to  detect  more  surely  than  any  modern  critic  the 
weak  point  in  Simonides. 

The  low  estimate  formed  by  Pindar  of  Baccliylides  has  been 
generally  accepted.  Eacchylides  was  the  nephew  of  Simonides^ 
who  probably  initiated  him  into  the  service  of  the  Muses.  Like 
Simonides,  IJacchylides  cultivated  all  kinds  of  lyric  poetry,  and 
in  all  cases  Eacchylides  seems  to  have  faithfully  followed  in  the 
footsteps  of  Simonides.  Other  choral  lyric  poets  of  this  period 
were  Lasus  of  Hermione,  who  was  cultivated  by  Hipparchus, 
was  devoted  especially  to  the  composition  of  dithyrambs,  and 
was  said  to  have  given  instruction  to  Pindar;  Melanippides 
the  elder,  Apollodorus  of  Athens,  Tynnichus  of  Chalcis,  Lam- 
prokles,  Kydias,  Hybrias,  and  Diagoras. 


CHAPTER  VL 

PINDAR. 

_PiNDAR  was  born  B.C.  521  (less  probably  B.C.  517)  in  Cynos- 

cephalae,  a  suburb  of  Thebes,  and,  appropriately  enough  in  one 
who  was  to  sing  of  victories  achieved  in  the  national  games  of 
Hellas,  he  was  born  in  the  month  Munychion,  during  the  cele- 
bration of  the  Pythian  games.  He  belonged  to  the  illustrious 
family  of  the  iEgidse  {Pyth.  v.  72),  who  traced  their  pedigree 
to  the  time  of  Cadmus,  and  counted  distinguished  branches  in 
Dorian  lands  as  well  as  in  Thebes.  Thus  by  descent  Pindar 
was  inclined  to  sympathise  with  Dorian  and  aristocratic  ten- 
dencies, while  the  connection  of  the  ^gidse  with  the  temples 
and  oracles  of  Greece  may  partly  account  for  his  cultivation  of 
the  choral  poetry  that  was  devoted  mainly  to  the  worship  of  the 
gods.  In  spite  of  the  contempt  which  the  Athenians  had  for 
the  Boeotians — "  Boeotian  swine  "  was  one  of  the  expressions 
in  Avhich  this  contempt  found  vent — the  Boeotians  were  neither 
wholly  excluded  from  refining  influences  by  their  depressing 
climate,  nor  wholly  destitute  of  native  artists.  The  music  of 
the  flute  was  cultivated  with  much  success,  and  Pindar,  though 
by  far  the  greatest,  was  not  the  only  poet  whom  Boeotia  pro- 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    PINDAR.  I  /  I 

duccd.  The  existence  of  Pindar  would  of  itself  point  to  the 
cultivation  of  music  and  choral  poetry  in  Eoeotia,  if  we  knew 
nothing  more,  as  the  knowledge  of  the  position  of  some  of  the 
stars  possessed  by  some  ancient  nations  proves  their  acquaintance 
with  a  certain  amount  of  mathematics,  though  these  have  left 
no  other  trace.  But  we  are  not  reduced  to  conjecture  of  this 
sort  in  the  present  case.  The  earliest  instruction  given  to 
Pindar,  and  the  earliest  artists  who  fired  his  poetic  instincts, 
Avere  Boeotian.  His  knowledge  of  the  flute  was  derived  from 
Scopelinus,  who  is  sometimes  stated  to  have  been  his  father, 
sometin:ies  his  stepfather ;  and  from  the  poetesses  Myrtis  and 
Corinna,  Pindar  learned  something,  though  whether  in  the  way 
of  instruction  or  rivalry  is  uncertain  ;  probably  they  affected 
him  in  both  ways.  There  is  a  story  that  Corinna  criticised  his 
early  efforts  adversely,  on  the  ground  that  they  displayed  a 
poverty  of  mytliological  content.  Tliis  is  a  charge  which  can- 
not justly  be  brought  against  those  odes  of  his  that  we  possess  ; 
and  Corinna  herself  seems  to  have  recognised  this,  for  later 
she  warned  him  "  to  sow  with  the  hand  and  not  with  the 
sack." 

The  earliest  fact  that  we  know  with  certainty  in  Pindar's 
literary  career  is  the  composition  of  the  tenth  Pythian  Ode, 
which  he  wrote  at  the  early  age  of  twenty.  The  Pythian  games, 
which  were  one  of  the  four  national  games  of  Hellas — the 
Olympian,  the  Pythian,  the  Xemean,  and  the  Isthmian — derived 
their  name  from  Pythius,  an  epithet  of  Apollo,  given  him  in  com- 
memoration of  his  slaying  the  dragon  Pytlio.  They  were  held 
on  the  Crisssean  plain  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Deljahi,  the 
oracle  of  Apollo.  Originally  the  contests  at  this  festival  were 
musical,  and  the  subject  of  the  nomas  that  were  composed 
for  the  contest  was  the  praise  of  Apollo.  In  course  of  time 
athletic  games  were  added,  in  imitation  of  the  OljTiipian  games  ; 
but  at  all  times  the  musical,  literary,  and  artistic  competitions 
were  the  distinguishing  feature  of  the  Pythian,  and  excelled  even 
those  of  the  Olympian  games,  i^lthough  athletic  games  were 
added  in  imitation  of  the  Olympian  festival,  the  Amphictyons, 
who  had  the  management  of  the  Pythia,  did  not  slavishly  con- 
fine themselves  to  the  programme  of  the  Olympia,  but  introduced 
events  which  the  Olympians  subsequently  borrowed.  Among 
these  contests  was  the  double  foot-race  (diaulos)  for  boys,  i.e.  a 
race  to  the  end  of  the  course  {stadium)  and  back  again — 440  yards. 
It  is  in  honour  of  Hippocleas,  who  won  this  race  in  b.c.  502, 
that  Pindar  composed  the  tenth  of  the  Pythian  Odes,  which,  hke 
the  rest,  are  arranged  not  chronologically,  but  according  to  the 


1/2  HISTOEY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

importance  of  the  victory  celebrated.  That  is  to  say,  chariot  oi 
horse  races  are  ranked  first,  and  then  come  boxing  and  wrestling 
matches,  the  pancratia,  and  finally  the  foot  races.  Odes  com- 
posed in  honour  of  a  victor  in  the  national  games  were  sometimea 
sung  on  the  spot,  but  more  frequently  they  were  performed  by 
his  friends  on  his  return  home.  The  celebration  of  the  victory 
was  not  merely  a  public,  but  also  a  religious  ceremony,  for  thanks 
were  publicly  paid  to  tlie  gods  for  the  honour  which  by  their 
favour  the  victor  had  won  for  the  city.  A  solemn  procession 
was  made  to  the  temple,  thanks  and  a  sacrifice  were  offered  to 
the  gods,  and  the  proceedings  closed  with  a  banquet.  During 
some  part  of  the  ceremony  the  triumphal  ode,  which  some 
friend  of  the  victor  engaged  a  poet  to  compose,  was  sung  by  a 
chorus  trained  for  the  occasion.  Sometimes  the  ode  was  sung 
during  the  procession  to  the  temple,  but  more  frequently  at  the 
banquet.  The  tenth  Pythian  Ode,  which  was  composed  by 
Pindar  at  the  request  of  Thorax,  one  of  the  Aleuadse,  who  reigned 
at  Larissa,  was  probably  sung  at  the  banquet.  The  subjects 
which  Pindar  had  to  treat  of  in  this  ode  were,  as  we  can  see, 
pretty  well  defined  beforehand.  Hippocleas,  the  victor,  and 
Thorax  would  naturally  be  mentioned ;  and  as  they  both  belonged 
to  the  family  of  the  Aleuadse,  some  myth  connected  with  that 
family  would  naturally  suggest  itself.  Again,  as  the  father  of 
Hippocleas  had  himself  won  victories  in  the  national  games,  the 
fact  would  appropriately  be  referred  to  in  a  triumphal  ode  honour- 
ing his  son.  Finally,  the  god  Apollo,  at  whose  festival  the  victory 
had  been  won,  would  claim  some  verses  from  the  poet.  To  these 
necessary  topics  Pindar  confines  himself ;  but  in  this,  the  first 
of  his  triumphal  odes,  he  already  shows  complete  skill  in  inter- 
weaving his  subjects  in  such  a  manner  that  they  seem  to  rise  as 
a  series  of  pictures  spontaneously  to  the  poet's  mind,  and  not  to 
be  the  ingenious  mosaic  of  a  professional  writer  of  occasional 
verse.  The  Aleuadse  claimed  to  be  descended  from  Heracles, 
whose  descendants  ruled  also  in  Lacedsemon ;  and  with  an  allusion 
to  this  coimection  between  the  two  states — a  connection  of  which 
Thessaly  would  be  proud  to  be  reminded — Pindar  opens  the  ode, 
justifying  this  compliment  to  Thessaly  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
of  one  of  the  Aleuadse,  Hippocleas,  the  winner  of  the  Diaulos, 
that  he  is  about  to  sing.  To  Apollo  is  due  the  praise  for  this 
victory,  as  for  the  victories  of  Hippocleas'  father  at  Olympia  and 
at  the  Pythia.  Father  and  son  have  thus  attained  the  greatest 
liappiness  and  pride  which  are  possible  for  mortals :  to  do  more, 
to  achieve  such  an  exploit  as  to  penetrate  to  the  mysterious  land 
of  the  Hyperboreans,  is  only  for  the  gods,  or  for  such  a  hero  as 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    PINDAR.  I  7  3 

Perseus  (an  ancestor  of  Heracles  and  therefore  of  the  Alenad?e) 
aided  by  a  god.  Pindar  then  describes  the  happy  race  of  Hyper- 
boreans, who  know  neither  sickness  nor  death,  labour  nor  war, 
but  laugh,  sing,  dance,  and  carouse  "with  golden  bay-leaves  in 
their  hair."  From  this  story  of  Perseus  Pindar  recalls  himself 
suddenly — for  "his  song  of  praise  flitteth  like  a  honey-bee  from 
tale  to  tale  "  ^ — as  though  he  had  been  carried  away  by  his  verse  ; 
and^  with  a  compliment  to  Thorax  and  the  Aleuadae,  who  govern 
the  Thessalians  well,  he  concludes. 

Although  Pindar  received  his  earliest  instruction  in  Thebes 
from  Scopelinus,  Myrtis,  and  Corinna,  he  went  to  Athens  to 
learn  more.  There  he  found  Apollodorus,  Agathocles.  and  Lasus 
of  Hermione  at  work,  and  them  he  took  as  his  masters.  At 
this  early  period  of  his  life  was  laid  the  foundation  of  that 
friendship  which  ever  after  existed  between  him  and  the 
Athenian  people,  in  spite  of  Pindar's  Theban  birth.  This  visit 
to  Athens  probably  had  its  influence  on  Pindar's  style,  as  it 
certainly  had  on  his  vocabulary,  though  we  cannot  trace  it  very 
precisely. 

The  next  fact  which  is  known  to  us  in  Pindar's  literary 
career  is  the  composition  of  the  sixth  Pythian  Ode,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-eight  (B.C.  349).  Tliis  ode  commemorates  the  victory  of 
a  chariot  driven  by  Thrasybulus,  to  whose  father,  Xenocrates,  the 
brother  of  Theron,  tyrant  of  Agrigentum,  the  chariot  and  horses 
belonged,  and  who  was  consequently  proclaimed  as  victor.  The 
ode  is  short,  is  addressed  to  Thrasybulus,  and  was  probably  sung 
at  Delphi ;  for  this  ode,  like  the  tenth,  celebrates  a  Pythian 
victory.  It  is  indeed  probable,  seeing  that  the  four  earliest 
odes  by  Pindar  celebrate  victories  at  the  Pythia,  the  festival  of 
the  god  of  Delphi,  that  Pindar's  family  connection  with  Delphi 
determined  the  direction  of  his  first  efforts  to  the  celebration  of 
Pythian  victories.  The  sixth  Pythian  Ode  is  short  and  simple 
alike  in  style  and  composition  ;  this  victory  in  the  chariot  race 
has  earned  for  Xenocrates  a  treasure  of  song  which  "  neither 
wind  nor  wintry  rain-storm  coming  from  strange  lands,  as  a 
fierce  host  born  of  the  thunderous  cloud,  shall  carry  into  the 
hiding-places  of  the  sea."  Thrasybulus,  the  son,  and  also  the 
charioteer  of  Xenocrates,  has  honoured  his  father ;  and  in  his 
filial  piety  he  is  like  Antilochus,  who,  when  his  father's  horses 
were  killed  in  the  battle  by  Paris,  and  his  father,  Nestor,  wa8 
being  attacked  by  Memnon,  bought  his  father's  life  by  his  own. 
" These  things  are  of  the  past,"  Pindar  admits,   "but  of  men 

^  Throughout  this  chapter  the  quotations  are  from  the  admirable  traaala* 
kion  of  Pindar  by  Mr.  Ernest  Myers  (Macmillan,  1884). 


174  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

that  now  are,  Thrasybulus  hath  come  nearest  to  oar  fathers' 
gauge." 

In  the  same  year  (b.c.  494)  that  Xenocrates  won  the  chariot 
race  at  the  Pythian  games,  Midas  of  Akragas,  for  whom  the 
twelfth  Pythian  Ode  was  written,  won  the  fiute-playing  match. 
The  same  player  was  winner  in  the  same  contest  in  B.C.  490, 
and  it  is  uncertain  for  which  victory  the  ode  was  composed. 
The  twelfth  ode  is  shorter,  and  even  more  simple  in  structure, 
than  the  sixth.  It  was  probably  sung  during  the  procession 
to  the  temple,  for  it  contains  only  strophes  and  antistrophes  ; 
whereas  those  odes  which  contain  also  epodes  were  probably 
sung  at  the  banquet ;  for  it  was  customary  for  the  chorus  to 
stand  still  during  the  singing  of  the  epodes,  a  fact  which  would 
seem  to  point  to  the  conclusion  that  odes  containing  epodes 
could  hardly  well  be  sung  during  a  procession.  The  ode  opens 
with  an  appeal  to  the  fair  city  of  Akragas  to  welcome  Midas, 
who  has  beaten  all  Hellas  "  in  the  art  which  once  on  a  time 
Pallas  Athene  devised,  when  she  made  music  of  the  fierce 
Gorgon's  death-lament."  By  means  of  this  transition  Pindar  is 
carried  on  to  tell  the  story  of  Perseus,  who  penetrated  to  the 
dim  mysterious  country  of  the  three  Grey  Sisters,  robbed  them 
of  the  one  eye  which  they  possessed  in  common,  and  slew  the 
Gorgon  Medusa,  whose  head  even  in  death  possessed  the  power  of 
changing  to  stone  whatever  it  was  turned  on.  Armed  with  the 
Medusa's  head,  Perseus  took  vengeance  on  Polydectes,  his  mother's 
oppressor.  Thus  Perseus,  like  Midas,  achieved  a  victory ;  but 
(and,  with  this  implied  warning  to  Midas  not  to  exult  overmuch 
in  the  moment  of  triumph,  the  ode  closes)  tliere  shall  be  a 
time  that  shall  lay  hold  on  a  man  unaware,  and  shall  give  him 
one  thing  beyond  his  hope,  but  another  it  shall  bestow  not  yet. 

In  B.C.  490  Pindar  wrote  the  seventh  Pythian  Ode  to  com- 
memorate the  victory  of  Megacles,  the  Athenian,  in  the  chariot- 
race.  The  ode  is  short,  which  is  not  strange,  as  it  was  sung  at 
Delphi  on  the  evening  of  the  victory ;  and  it  is  perfunctory. 
Megacles  belonged  to  the  distinguished  family  of  the  Alcma30- 
nidse,  who  had  contributed  large  sums  to  the  rebuilding  of  the 
temple  of  Delphi.  He  had  himself  won  many  victories  in  the 
various  national  games,  and  had  been  banished  from  Athena 
twice.  Pindar  touches  very  briefly  on  these  topics,  and  dis- 
misses the  whole  matter  in  a  score  of  lines.  The  year  B.C.  490, 
the  thirty-second  of  Pindar's  life,  was  the  date  of  something 
more  important  even  than  victories  in  chariot-racing.  It  was 
the  year  in  which  the  Athenians  defeated  the  Persians  at  Mara- 
thon.    On  this  great  victory,  however,  Pindar  at  the  time  looked 


LYRIC  poetry:    PINDAR.  1/5 

with  the  same  eyes  as  his  fellow-Thebans.     Later,  indeed,  lie 
came  to  understand  the  value  of  the  services  which  Athens  at 
this  time  and  in  the  second  Persian  war  rendered  to  all  Hellas  ; 
but  at  first  he  probably,  like  his  fellow-citizens,  only  saw  in  the 
battle  of  Marathon  a  victory  for  the  state  with  which  Thebes 
■was  frequently  at  war,  and  for  which  she  always  entertained 
feelings  of  hostility.     With  any  victory  won  by  the  democracy 
of  Athens  the  aristocrats  of  Thebes  could  have  but  little  sym- 
pathy.    Between  the  battle   of  ^Marathon,   B.C.    490,  and  the 
battle  of  Salamis,  B.C.  480,  there  are  only  three  odes  written 
by  Pindar  that  are  preserved.     The  tenth  Olympian  Ode  was 
written  in  honour  of  the  victory  of  Agesidamus,  an  Epizephy- 
rian  Locrian  in  the  boys'  boxing-match,  B.C.  484.     The  ode  is 
one  of  those  which  were  composed  and  sung  on  the  spot.     It 
is  brief,  and  consists  mainly  of  a  promise  to  compose  a  more 
elaborate  Avork  in  the  future.     The  promise  was,  after  an  un- 
certain interval,  and  probably  not  before  B.C.  476,  redeemed  in 
the  eleventh  Olympian  Ode.     In  the  latter  ode  Pindar  acknow- 
ledges his  debt,  praises  Agesidamus  and  his  trainer,  and  says 
(86-90),  "Even  as  a  son  by  his  lawful  wife  is  welcome  to  a 
father,  who  hath  now  travelled  to  the  other  side  of  youth,  and 
maketh  his  soul  warm  Avith  love — for  wealth  that  must  fall  to  a 
strange  owner  from  without  is  most  hateful  to  a  dying  man — 
so  also,  Agesidamus,  when  a  man  who  hath  done  honourable 
deeds  goeth  unsung  to  the  house  of  Hades,  this  man  hath  spent 
vain   breath  and   won   but  brief  gladness  for  his   toil."     But 
Pindar's  song  is  washed  along  as  the  rolling  pebble  is  by  the 
wave,  as  he  himself  says  (10),  and  from  the  victor  in  the  Olym- 
pian games  the  poet  turns  to  the  games  themselves  and  tells 
the    mythical    story    of   their   institution.      According  to  this 
account,  Heracles  having  been  cheated  of  the  reward  promised 
him  by  Augeas    for  cleansing  his  stables,   proceeded  to   take 
vengeance,  and  Augeas  "  saw  his  rich  native  land,  his  own  city, 
beneath  fierce  fire  and  iron  blows  sink  down  into  the  deep  moat 
of  calamity."     Augeas  himself  was  slain.      "Of  strife  against 
stronger  powers,"  says  Pindar  in  one  of  the  gnomes  that  he  is 
tamous  for,  "  it  is  hard  to  be  rid."     After  his  victory,  Heracles 
gathered  together  his  host  at  Pisa,  by  the  ancient  tomb  of  Pelops, 
made  offerings  from  the  spoil  and  held  the  first  Olympian  games. 
The  third  ode,  which  falls  between  the  battles  of  Marathon 
and  Salamis,  is  the  fifth  Nemean.     It  was  composed  in  honour 
of  Pytheas  of  .^gina,  winner  in  the  bDVs'  pankration  at  the 
Nemean  games.     The  kernel  of  the  ode  is  the  favour  which 
the  gods  showed  to  the  .^acidse,  the  patron  heroes  of  iEgina. 


176  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Having  thus  brought  the  victor  into  connection  with  the  heroes 
who  before  him  brought  glory  to  ^Egina,  Pindar  proceeds  to 
select  from  the  myths  connected  with  the  ^aeidse  one  which 
was  told  of  Peleus,  the  eldest  of  the  sons  of  ^acus,  and  which 
conveyed  the  moral  lesson  which  is  to  be  found  in  most  of  Pin- 
dar's odes.  The  moral  value  of  athletic  training  is  the  self- 
control  which  it  necessitates  ;  and  the  story  which  Pindar  relates 
of  the  continence  of  Peleus,  and  his  reward  in  gaining  Thetis 
for  his  wife,  evidently  means  that  the  self-control  which  Pytheaa 
had  exercised  as  a  boy,  with  tlie  glorious  reward  of  victory,  was 
equally  necessary  throughout  life,  and  equally  certain  to  meet 
with  a  fitting  return.  Apart,  however,  from  the  myth  and  the 
moral  which  constitute  the  substance  of  the  ode,  the  introduc- 
tion is  interesting  as  showing  the  function  of  odes  of  victory  in 
Greek  life.  A  triumph  in  the  national  games  not  only  brought 
honour  and  joy  to  the  victor  and  to  his  city ;  it  was  also  a  mark 
of  the  favour  of  the  gods,  for  it  was  by  their  goodwill  alone  so 
great  a  glory  could  be  bestowed.  The  commemoration,  there- 
fore, of  this  act  of  divine  favour  was  a  religious  duty,  and 
claimed  the  services  of  the  arts.  Sculpture  and  poetry  vied  in 
giving  expression  to  this  sentiment  of  obligation  to  the  gods  and 
of  public  rejoicing.  But  poetry,  Pindar  says  in  the  introduction 
to  this  ode,  has  a  wider  range  than  sculpture,  for  poetry  travels 
everywhere.  "  No  statuary  I,  that  I  should  fashion  images  to 
rest  idly  on  their  pedestals  ;  nay,  but  by  every  trading  ship  and 
plying  boat  forth  from  .^Egina  fare,  sweet  song  of  mine,  and 
bear  abroad  the  news,  how  that  Lampon's  son,  the  strong- 
limbed  Pytheas,  hath  won  at  Nemea  the  pankratiast's  crown, 
while  on  his  cheeks  he  showeth  not  as  yet  the  vine-bloom's 
mother,  mellowing  midsummer." 

In  the  odes  composed  between  the  battles  of  Marathon  and 
Salamis  no  mention  occurs  of  the  services  of  Athens  to  Greece 
in  the  Persian  wars  ;  and  it  is  probable  that  Pindar's  Theban 
feeling  prevented  him  from  recognising — what  perhaps  was  not 
then  generally  recognised — how  great  these  services  were.  But 
some  time  after  the  battle  of  Salamis — how  long  after,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  say — he  did  realise  the  magnitude  of  the  danger  whic  h 
had  been  averted  from  Greece,  and  the  pity  of  it  that  Thebes 
had  had  no  share  in  the  glory  of  patriotic  self-sacrifice.  In  the 
seventh  Isthmian  Ode  he  alludes  to  the  grief  thus  caused  to 
him  :  "  I,  albeit  heavy  at  heart,  am  bidden  to  call  upon  the 
golden  Muse.  Yea,  since  we  are  come  forth  from  our  sore 
troubles,  let  us  not  fall  into  the  desolation  of  crownlessness, 
neither  nurse  our  griefs ;  but  having  ease  from  our  ills  that  are 


LYEIC  POETRY:    PINDAR.  1 7/ 

past  mending,  we  will  set  some  pleasant  thing  before  the  people, 
though  it  follow  hard  on  pain  :  inasmuch  as  some  god  hath  put 
away  from  us  the  Tantalus-stone  that  hung  above  ciur  heads,  a 
curse  intolerable  to  Hellas." 

At  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Salamis,  Pindar  was  about  forty 
years  of  age.  He  was  then  entering  on  the  second  period  of  his 
literary  career,  and  his  reputation  was  spreading  beyond  the 
seas  to  the  farthest  colonies  of  Greece.  Even  before  this  he  had 
received  commissions  from  Sicily,  and  his  name,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  his  works,  must  have  been  known  there.  But  now  we 
find  him  writing  odes  for  the  king  of  Gyrene,  and  for  other  in- 
habitants of  that  distant  colony.  Indeed,  it  is  inferred  from  these 
odes  that  Pindar  himself  travelled  to  Gyrene.  However  this 
may  be,  it  seems  beyond  reasonable  doubt  that  Pindar  visited 
Sicily,  and  stayed  for  a  long  time  in  the  island.  Of  the  forty- 
four  odes  of  victory  which  have  come  down  to  us,  fourteen  were 
composed  for  Sicilian  victors.  With  Hiero,  tyrant  of  Syracuse, 
Pindar  seems  to  have  been  on  terms  of  some  intimacy.  The 
odes  in  his  honour  (0.  i,  P.  i,  2,  3)  reveal  a  close  acquaintance 
with  the  private  affairs  as  well  as  the  public  policy  of  the  tyrant. 
But  Pindar's  acquaintance  with  Sicily  was  not  confined  to  the 
court  of  Syracuse ;  he  seems  to  have  been  known  in  Akragas 
(0.  2.  3,  P.  6.  12,  I.  2),  Camarina  (0.  4.  5),  and  Himera  (0. 
1 2).  Next  to  Sicily,  ^Egina  fills  the  most  important  place  in 
Pindar's  epinikia  or  odes  of  victory.  One  fourth  of  the  odes 
have  to  do  with  .^ginetan  victors  ;  and  Pindar  seems  to  have 
had  an  especial  affection  for  the  place.  He  calls  it  "the  com- 
mon light  of  all,  which  aideth  the  stranger  with  justice;"  the 
place  "  where  saviour  Themis,  who  sitteth  in  judgment  by  Zeus, 
the  stranger's  succour,  is  honoured  more  than  anywhere  else 
among  men."  "  From  the  beginning  is  her  fame  perfect,  for  she 
is  sung  of  as  the  nurse  of  heroes,  foremost  in  many  games  and  in 
violent  fights ;  and  in  her  mortal  men  also  is  she  pre-eminent." 
"We  find  Pindar's  odes  also  in  Argos,  Locris,  Corinth,  Orcho- 
menus,  Athens,  and  Thessaly  ;  and  we  may  reasonably  suppose 
that  the  poet  himself  visited  these  places. 

To  this  period  of  Pindar's  literary  career  belongs  the  fourth 
Pythian  Ode.  This  is  the  finest  of  all  the  work  of  Pindar  that 
has  come  down  to  us.  The  ode  is  written  in  honour  of  the 
victory  gained  in  the  Pythian  chariot-race  by  Arkesilas,  king  of 
Gyrene.  The  myth  which  forms  the  substance  of  the  poem  is 
the  tale  of  the  expedition  of  Jason  in  the  Argo  in  quest  of  the 
golden  fleece.  The  connection  between  the  myth  and  Gyrene 
is  that  Gyrene  was  said  to  have  been  colonised  by  the  descen- 


178         EISTOKY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

dants  of  Euphemus,  one  of  the  Argonauts.  The  ode  appear.3  tn 
have  had  another  object  than  the  ostensible  one  of  celebrating 
the  victory  of  Arkesilas  :  it  seems  to  have  been  designed  either 
to  reconcile  or  to  mark  the  reconciliation  of  Arkesilas  with  his 
kinsman  Demophilus,  who  had  taken  part  in  an  unsuccessful 
aristocratical  rebellion,  and  had  been  exiled  in  consequence. 
The  ode  is  on  a  larger  scale  than  is  usual  with  Pindar ;  the 
myth  is  much  longer,  and  the  introduction  is  proportionately 
increased.  The  work  is  consequently  not  so  close ;  and  as  the 
parts  are  exhibited  in  greater  magnitude,  their  relation  is  more 
easily  discerned  than  in  odes  of  greater  condensation.  The 
narrative  is  exquisitely  beautiful ;  the  scenes  which  succeed 
each  other  in  the  history  of  the  expedition  are  painted  with  all 
the  brilliancy  of  Pindar's  opulent  vocabulary,  and  with  a  dis- 
tinctness and  reality  not  surpassed  by  any  other  poet.  The 
simplicity  of  this  ode  is  much  assisted  by  the  fact  that  Pindar 
devotes  himself  purely  to  the  business  of  narrating  the  myth  ; 
whereas  in  other  odes  he  seeks  to  cast  light  on  some  central 
idea  from  all  points  of  view,  and  to  do  this  he  shifts  his  ground 
with  a  rapidity  which  is  dazzling,  and  before  one  myth  has  had 
time  to  die  away  from  the  retina,  as  it  were,  of  the  mind's  eye, 
he  throws  on  it  another  and  yet  another.  The  greater  sim- 
plicity of  the  ode,  it  should  be  remarked,  is  not  confined  to 
the  clearness  of  the  narrative  merely  ;  the  metre  is  not  of  the 
highly  elaborate  character  to  be  found  elsewhere  in  Pindar.  It 
approaches  to  the  hexameter,  as  the  tone  of  the  narrative  ap- 
proaches the  style  of  epic ;  and  we  may  conjecture  with  proba- 
bility that  the  greater  clearness  of  the  narrative  and  the  greater 
simplicity  of  the  metre  point  to  a  much  less  elaborate  musical 
accompaniment  than  was  designed  for  the  other  odes. 

The  third  period  of  Pindar's  literary  career  extends  from  the 
time  when  he  was  sixty-five  years  of  age  to  the  date  of  his  death. 
When  he  died  is  uncertain.  The  tradition  usually  accepted 
makes  him  to  be  eighty  years  of  age  at  his  death.  All  that 
we  know  is  that  the  fourth  Olympian  Ode  was  in  all  oro- 
bability  composed  in  B.C.  452,  and  we  cannot  be  certain  that 
any  of  the  odes  we  possess  belong  to  a  later  date,  although  the 
eighth  Olympian  is  sometimes  considered  as  having  been  com- 
posed in  B.C.  450.  To  the  tliird  period  belong,  in  addition  to 
the  two  odes  just  mentioned,  the  fifth  and  ninth  Olympian 
Odes  and  the  sixth  Isthmian.  A  decline  of  power  is  traced  in 
the  odes  of  this  period  by  some  critics,  but  it  is  only  to  a  slight 
extent  that  Pinclar  falls  below  himself. 

In  addition  to  the  collection  of  odes  of  victory  that  have  sur^ 


LYRIC  poetry:    PINDAR.  1 79 

vived  to  our  time,  Pindar  also  wrote  paeans,  parthenia,  prosodia 
or  processional  songs,  hymns,  hyporchemata,  encomia,  drinking- 
songs,  dirges,  and  dithyrambs  ;  but  although  we  possess  frag- 
ments of  some  of  these,  the  fragments  are  inconsiderable.  It 
is,  however,  fortunate  for  the  history  of  Greek  literature  that 
we  should  have  specimens  of  choral  lyric  such  as  the  odes  of 
victory  which  have  been  preserved.  They  serve  to  show  us  the 
connection  of  choral  lyric  with  previous  genres  of  poetry,  and 
its  difference  from  the  chorus  of  tragedy,  and  thus  they  ex- 
hibit a  link  it  the  development  of  Greek  literature  which  other- 
wise would  have  been  lost.  As  regards  the  connection  with 
earlier  kinds  of  poetry,  we  may  notice  that  choral  lyric  shows 
that  its  roots  are  in  epic  poetry,  not  only  by  the  epic  words 
which  we  find  in  Pindar,  and  by  the  mj^ths  and  legends  which 
he  borrows  from  the  epic  poets,  but  essentially  by  the  fact  that 
it  possesses  the  element  of  narrative,  which  constitutes  epic 
poetry  and  is  absent  from  personal  lyrics.  But  under  the  term 
"epic"  poetry  is  included  not  only  narratives  such  as  those  of 
Homer  and  the  Cyclic  poets,  but  also  the  didactic  poetry  of 
Hesiod  and  his  school.  With  this  class  of  epic  also  the  choral 
lyric  of  Pindar  has  points  in  common.  As  a  rule,  Pindar  has  a 
moral  lesson  to  teach  even  in  his  odes  of  victory,  and  thus  he 
reproduces  the  spirit  and  the  characteristic  of  Hesiodic  poetry. 
The  epic  of  Homer  and  of  Hesiod  was  followed  by  the  personal 
lyrics  of  the  ^olian  poets,  Alcseus  and  Sappho,  and  in  the 
choral  lyric  of  Pindar  we  find  comprised  the  leading  qualities 
of  personal  lyrics  as  well  as  of  epic  and  of  didactic  poetry. 
Choral  does  indeed  difi'er  from  personal  lyric  in  the  occasion 
of  its  composition  and  production.  The  lyric  poets  of  Lesbos 
were  not  bound  down  by  times  and  seasons,  but  gave  expression 
to  their  emotions  as  their  emotions  prompted  them,  whereas 
the  composer  of  choral  lyric  had  to  wait  for  a  commission.  But 
the  two  kinds  of  lyric  poetry  have  this  in  common,  that  in  both 
the  poet  appears  in  person,  whereas  in  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey 
the  poet  never  brings  himself  before  the  reader.  In  Pindar 
this  self-consciousness  is  extreme.  In  virtue  of  his  genius  and 
his  divine  gift  of  song,  he  feels  himself  the  equal  of  princes ; 
and  on  the  victor,  great  as  victory  makes  him,  he  of  his  good- 
will can  confer  a  boon  second  only  to  victory  itself.  Thus,  then, 
the  choral  lyric  of  Pindar  sums  up  in  itself  all  that  had  gone 
before  in  Greek  poetry.  We  have  now  to  see  in  what  respect, 
and  why,  choral  lyric  changed  when  it  became  incorporated  in 
the  drama.  In  the  first  place,  the  element  df  narrative  in  this 
kind  of  lyric  was  reduced  to  a  minimum  in  the  drama.     Mythi 


I  80  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

are  all  ided  to  rather  than  narrated  in  the  chorus  of  tragedy} 
and  the  reason  is  obvious.  Narrative  in  the  drama  found  its 
place  in  the  speeches  of  the  messengers  or  other  subordinate 
characters,  who  in  all,  or  nearly  all  Greek  tragedies,  relate  the 
events  which,  for  one  reason  or  another,  could  not  be  perfonned 
upon  the  stage.  In  the  next  place,  choral  Ij'ric  in  becoming 
the  chorus  of  tragedy  lost  its  personal  character.  "We  cannot 
look  to  the  chorus  for  the  personal  views  of  a  Greek  tragedian 
on  the  moral  or  other  problems  raised  in  his  play.  The  drama- 
tist holds  up  these  problems  for  investigation  in  all  kinds  of 
lights,  from  the  point  of  view  first  of  one  character,  then  of 
another.  But  his  own  personal  view  need  never  find  direct 
expression ;  and  frequently  the  chorus  simply  sums  up  the 
action  of  the  play,  so  far  as  it  has  proceeded,  and  does  not 
express  any  opinion  thereon,  or  at  the  most  reflects  the  feel- 
ings which  the  audience  may  be  expected  to  experience.  In 
fine,  the  difference  between  choral  lyric  and  the  chorus  of 
tragedy  is  partly  of  degree,  partly  of  kind.  In  degree,  because 
narrative  is  minimised ;  in  kind,  because  the  opinions  expressed 
are  not  professedly  the  poet's.  In  one  respect,  however,  choral 
lyric  underwent  no  change  when  incorporated  into  the  drama. 
It  still  remained  highly  musical.  In  the  tragic  chorus,  as  ia 
choral  lyric,  the  musical  accompaniment  was  at  least  as  impor- 
tant as  the  words.  In  both,  the  function  of  the  words  seems  to 
have  been,  not  so  much  to  present  a  logical  series  of  definite 
ideas,  as  to  evoke  a  series  of  emotions,  and  to  pass  before  the 
mind's  eye  bright  and  beautiful  or  impressive  images,  which 
succeeded  each  other  too  rapidly  for  analysis,  but  not  too  rapidly 
to  produce  the  feeling  designed  by  the  poet. 

If,  now,  in  conclusion,  we  must  say  a  word  of  Pindar's  quality 
as  a  poet,  it  will  be  to  point  out  that  it  is  in  the  special  func- 
vion,  as  just  described,  of  choral  lyric  that  his  special  excellence 
consists.  Image  after  image  is  presented  by  him  to  our  eyes : 
from  this  point  and  from  that,  and  from  yet  another,  light  of 
the  brightest  is  thrown  on  the  point  which  he  wishes  to  illumine. 
To  endeavour  to  discriminate  between  the  effects  which  thus 
rapidly  succeed  each  other  is  to  lose  the  total  impression  which 
the  whole  is  intended  to  convey.  Doubtless  there  always  was 
a  thread  running  through  all  the  ideas  contained  in  an  ode ; 
and  in  many  cases  the  thread  by  diligent  study  can  even  now 
be  distinguished ;  but  it  seems  improbable  that  the  audience, 
whose  attention  was  claimed  by  the  music  as  well  as  the  words, 
either  were  able  or  were  expected  by  Pindar  to  analyse  logically 
the  ode  as  they  heard  it.     The  ideas  and  emotions  aroused  in 


LYRIC  POETRY  :    FINDAR.  I  8  I 

the  audience  were  as  satisfactory,  but  probably  :iot  more  definite, 
than  those  aroused  by  music.  The  two  chief  qualities  of  Pin- 
dar's poetry  are  rapidity  and  radiance.  In  his  desire  to  illus- 
trate his  thought  from  every  point  of  view,  he  not  only  flashes 
from  one  illustration  to  another  before  the  mind  of  the  hearer 
has  wholly  taken  in  the  force  of  the  first ;  but  within  a  single 
sentence  he  fuses  two  conceptions,  whose  joint  effect  is  more 
rapid  and  more  dazzling  than  that  which  would  be  product-d  by 
their  separate  enunciation.  As  for  the  radiance  of  his  poetry, 
it  is  seen  not  only  in  his  fondness  for  epithets  of  brightness  and 
effulgence,  but  in  the  vividness  and  persistency  with  which  the 
images  of  the  persons  and  things  described  by  him  remain  on 
the  mind's  eye ;  and  we  cannot  conclude  better  than  by  quoting 
from  the  fourth  Pythian  as  an  illustration  the  description  of 
Jason :  "  So  in  the  fidness  of  time  he  came,  wielding  two 
"spears,  a  wondrous  man ;  and  the  vesture  that  was  upon  him 
was  twofold,  the  garb  of  the  Magnetes'  country  close  fitting  to 
his  splendid  limbs,  but  above  he  wore  leopard-skin  to  turn  the 
hissing  showers ;  nor  were  the  bright  locks  of  his  hair  shorn 
from  him,  but  over  all  his  back  ran  rippling  down.  Swiftly  he 
went  straight  on,  and  took  his  stand,  making  trial  of  his  daunt- 
less soul,  in  the  market-place  when  the  multitude  was  full." 

Connected  with  Pindar  are  the  names  of  Myrtis  and  Corinna. 
The  former  is  said  to  have  been  born  at  Anthedon  in  Boeotia. 
We  should  not  even  know  that  she  composed  lyric  poetry,  were 
it  not  that  Corinna  has  recorded  the  fact  that  she  competed 
against  Pindar.  Corinna,  born  in  Tanagra,  is  said,  like  Pindar, 
to  have  been  taught  by  Myrtis.  She  too  competed  against 
Pindar,  and  is  said  to  have  five  times  defeated  him  for  the 
prize — a  result  which  Pausanias  conjectures  to  have  been  due 
to  the  fact  that  she  composed  in  the  local  dialect,  while  Pindar 
employed  Doric.  Here  we  may  mention  the  name  of  some 
other  poetesses.  Telesilla  of  Argos,  who  lived  at  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century  B.C.,  not  only  composed  verses,  but  took  up  arms 
against  the  Spartans  when  they  invaded  Argos  under  Cleomenes. 
Praxilla  of  Sicyon,  who  flourished  about  B.C.  450,  composed 
dithyrambs,  lyric  poetry,  a  small  epic,  gave  her  name  to  two 
kinds  of  metre,  and  was  especially  distinguished  for  Iit  drink- 
ing-songs or  skolia,  which  were  extremely  popular  in  Athens. 
Clitagora  flourished  between  B.C.  560  and  B.C.  527,  and  was 
famous  for  a  skolion  she  composed.  Other  poetesses,  whose 
dates  are  unknown,  and  who  may  or  may  not  belong  to  the 
classical  period,  are  Charixena,  Eriphanis,  Salpe,  Myia,  Clito, 
Learchis,  Menarchis,  Telarchis,  Mystis,  Praxigoris,  and  Arignote, 


I  8  2  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

With  I'iudar  choral  lyric  reached  its  highest  development  j 
after  him  not  only  was  there  no  poet,  except  Bacchylides,  who 
cultivated  all  kinds  of  lyric  poetry,  but  many  kinds,  e.g.  par- 
thenia,  prosodia,  hyporchemata,  ceased  to  be  cultivated  at  all, 
while  others,  such  as  paeans  and  hymns,  were  comparatively 
neglected.  Dithyrambs  alone  continued  to  be  cultivated,  but 
in  such  a  way  as  shows  that  the  period  of  choral  lyric  is  past. 
Pindar  had  allowed  the  musical  accompaniment  quite  its  full 
importance,  but  the  dithyrambic  poets  of  the  next  generation 
made  the  music  of  more  importance  than  the  words.  The 
clearest  sign  of  the  decay  of  choral  lyric  is  the  fact  that  the 
dithyramb  was  no  longer  true  to  its  type,  but  sought  to  produce 
effects  by  means  properly  peculiar  to  a  distinct  branch  of  art, 
the  drama  ;  just  as  the  decay  of  the  drama  was  indicated  by  the 
tendency  to  oratorical  effects  in  the  plays  of  Euripides.  The 
symptoms  of  decay  in  the  dithyramb  were  first  noticeable  in 
Melanippides  of  Melos,  in  Democritus  of  Chios  and  Crexus, 
contemporaries  of  Pindar.  During  the  Peloponnesian  war,  the 
most  celebrated  composer  of  dithyrambs  was  the  younger  Mela- 
nippides, who  bought  Philoxenus  of  Cythera  as  a  slave,  taught 
him  lyric,  and  saw  him  achieve  success  in  dithyrambs.  Con- 
temporary with  the  younger  Melanippides  was  Phrynis  of  Myti- 
lene  in  Lesbos,  who  gained  victories  in  the  dithyramb  contests 
at  the  Panatheneea.  After  Melanippides,  Cinesias  became  the 
favourite  dithyramb  writer  at  Athens,  and  was  much  attacked 
by  the  comedians.  Cinesias  was  succeeded  by  Timotheus  of 
Miletus,  who  visited  the  court  of  Archelaus  in  Macedonia,  but 
spent  most  of  his  time  in  Athens.  He  seems  to  have  possessed 
greater  talent  than  any  of  these  later  dithyrambic  poets.  To 
Athens  also  were  attracted  Polyeidus,  Kekeides,  Licymnius  of 
Chios,  Telestes  of  Selinus,  Aripliron  of  Sicyon,  Anaxandrides 
of  Kaneiros,  Theodoridas  of  Syracuse  and  Argas,  who  aU  com> 
peted  at  various  times  for  the  dith^-rumb  priio. 


BOOK  III. 

THE    DRAMA. 


CHAPTER  L 

EARLY  TRAGEDY. 

**BoTH  tragedy  and  comedy  were  originally  improvisations. 
The  former  had  its  origin  with  the  choir-masters  of  the  dithy- 
ramb, the  latter  with  those  of  the  phallic  hymns,  which  even 
now  in  many  cities  remain  in  use.  Tragedy  gradually  advanced 
by  such  successive  improvements  as  were  most  obvious,  and, 
after  many  changes,  reposed  at  length  when  it  had  acquired  its 
proper  form.  The  number  of  actors  vEschylus  first  advanced 
from  one  to  two ;  he  abridged  the  chorus,  and  gave  the  dialogue 
the  principal  role.  Sophocles  introduced  three  actors  and  stage 
decorations.  Further,  the  originally  short  fables  acquired  a 
proper  magnitude,  and  the  number  of  episodes  was  increased. 
As  tragedy  developed  from  the  satyric  drama,  it  was  late  before 
it  threw  off  comic  language  and  assumed  its  proper  dignity. 
Iambics  displaced  trochaic  tetrameters ;  for  originally  trochaics 
were  used  because  tragedy,  like  the  satyric  drama,  Avas  com- 
posed for  dancing.  But  when  dialogue  was  introduced,  nature 
pointed  out  the  appropriate  metre ;  for  of  all  metres  the  iambic 
is  the  most  colloquial." 

This  is  what  Aristotle  says  ^  of  the  origin  and  early  history 
of  the  drama,  and  it  is  almost  all  we  know  on  the  subject. 
From  this  it  would  seem  that  in  the  earliest  stage  of  tragedy, 
the  author  of  the  dithyramb,  who  was  also  the  choir-master, 
during  a  pause  between  one  part  of  the  dithyramb  and  the  next, 
came  forward  and  improvised  a  short  story,  relating  probably 
to  some  adventure  of  the  god  Dionysus,  in  whose  honour  the 
dithyramb  was  being  performed.  This  story  was  told  in  trochaic 
verse,  contained  much  that  was  comic,  involved  a  good  deal  of 
1  Poetics,  4.  11-14. 


184  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

dancing,  and  was  accompanied  by  music.  At  first  tlie  choir- 
master appeared  only  once  during  the  dithyramb  in  his  charac- 
ter of  improvisatore,  but  in  course  of  time  such  "  episodes ' 
became  more  numerous.  At  first,  too,  the  poet  simply  recited 
his  story,  probably  to  the  accompaniment  of  sympathetic  and 
explanatory  gestures,  and  dancing  on  the  part  of  the  satyr- 
chorus,  which  had  come  to  be  associated  with  the  dithyramb. 
Even  thus  the  actor  might,  by  retiring  during  the  dithyramb 
and  changing  his  dress,  appear  at  several  times  in  various  cha- 
racters, e.g.  as  a  hero  reciting  what  he  had  done,  or  as  a  mes- 
senger reciting  what  had  been  done,  and  thus  produce  an  effect 
not  unlike  that  of  a  whole  play.  But  it  could  not  have  been 
long  before  the  poet  conceived  the  idea  of  addressing  himself  to 
and  provoking  replies  from  the  chorus  ;  thus  dialogue  naturally 
arose,  and  when  it  did,  the  metre  naturally  changed  from  tro- 
chaics  to  iambics. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Aristotle  in  his  account  of  the  origin 
of  tragedy  does  not  mention  Thespis,  to  whom  the  introduction 
of  an  actor,  and  consequently  the  "  invention "  of  tragedy,  is 
usually  ascribed.^  Whether  Aristotle  was  acquainted  with  this 
view  and  (as  in  that  case  his  silence  would  show)  tacitly  rejected 
it,  or  whether  the  view  only  originated  after  Aristotle's  time,  is 
hard  to  say.  The  earliest  reference  to  it  that  we  have  is  in  the 
pseudo-Platonic  Minos,  which  was  not  composed  until  after  the 
death  of  Aristotle.  There  ^  we  have  the  statement  that  "  tra- 
gedy did  not,  as  people  think,  originate  with  Thespis  or  Phry- 
nichus,"  which  implies  that  some  people  at  the  time  of  the 
writing  of  the  Minos  ascribed  the  invention  of  tragedy  to 
Thespis.  But  if  the  evidence  in  the  possession  of  Aristotle 
did  not  lead  him  to  ascribe  the  introduction  of  an  actor,  and 
subsequently  of  dialogue,  to  Thespis,  we  may  infer  that  the 
claims  made  for  Thespis  had  no  strong  basis;  in  which  inference 
we  are  confirmed  by  a  passage  in  the  grammarian  Pollux,^  which 
expressly  mentions  the  existence  of  dialogue  before  Thespis. 
The  ascription  of  the  "invention"  of  tragedy  to  Thespis  was 

1  Horace,  A.P.  285  :— 

"Ignotum  tragicae  genns  invenisse  CamoensB 
Dicitur,  et  plaustris  vexisse  poemata  Thespis, 
Quae  canereut  agereutque  peruucti  fascibus  ora." 

The  *'  waggons"  belong  to  the  early  history  of  comedy,  which  Horace  mixea 
up  with  that  of  tragedy. 

^  32 1  A,  17  S^  rpayuidia  iarl  iraKaibv  ivGdde,  oiix  ^^  otovrai  dirb  OiairiSof  i/>« 
^afxivT),  oiiS  dirb  ^pvvLxov. 

^  iv.  123,  Aeos  5'  fiv  Tp&we^a  dpxaia  itp'  1p>  irpb  QiffviSoi  eU  tix  dfu^dt 
rotj  xope\jTa,h  dtreKfiiaro. 


THE  DKAMA  :  EARLY  TRAGEDY.  1 85 

probably  due  to  the  difficulty  which  the  Greeks  had  in  under- 
standing the  action  of  a  process,  and  their  consequent  tendency 
to  ascribe  all  things  to  the  intentional  action  of  persons.  All 
good  laws  were  at  Athens  ascribed  to  Solon ;  the  constitution 
of  Sparta,  the  result  of  a  process  of  external  pressure  operating 
during  many  generations,  was  ascribed  to  Lycurgus  ;  and  so  the 
invention  of  tragedy  was  ascribed  to  Thespis.  Thespis  must 
have  rendered  considerable  services  to  tragedy  to  have  been 
credited  with  its  invention,  but  what  these  services  were  wc 
do  not  know.  The  orator  Themistius  ^  (who  lived  at  Constan- 
tinople and  flourished  about  a.d.  360)  refers  to  Aristotle  as  say- 
ing that  Thespis  invented  prologue  and  rhesis ;  but  no  such 
passage  occurs  in  the  Poetics^  and  although  possibly  Themistius 
may  be  referring  to  some  now  lost  work  of  Aristotle,  e.g.  that 
On  Poets,  it  is  more  probable  that  here,  as  elsewhere,  he  is  in- 
accurate, and  that  the  quotation  does  not  come  from  Aristotle, 
In  any  case,  it  is  difficult  to  know  what  the  statement  means ; 
for  although  Thespis  may  have  been  the  first  poet  who  appeared 
before  the  audience  before  the  dithyramb  began,  and  thus  may 
be  said  to  have  invented  the  prologue,  the  statement  that  he 
invented  the  rhesis  {i.e.  a  long  passage  of  iambics  delivered 
by  the  actor,  and  spoken,  not  sung)  is  hard  to  understand.  If 
it  refers  to  the  improvised  recitations  of  the  earliest  choir- 
masters, or  if  it  refers  to  the  subsequent  introduction  of  spoken 
iambics  in  the  place  of  the  melic  trochaics,  it  is  hard  to  recon- 
cile with  the  passage  quoted  above  from  the  Poetics,  which  does 
not  ascribe  either  invention  to  Thespis. 

The  character  of  the  drama  of  Thespis  must  be  inferred  from 
the  fact  that  it  was  neither  tragedy  nor  satyric  drama,  but  the 
common  ancestor  from  which  both  these  forms  of  dramatic 
representation  were  shortly  to  be  evolved.  The  chorus  con- 
sisted of  satyrs,^  but  the  argument  of  the  play  was  not  therefore 
always  merry.^  The  Pentheus,  from  its  title,  could  hardly  have 
been  anything  but  tragic,  and  the  fact  that  tragedy  was  de- 
scended from  the  drama  of  Thespis  implies  that  it  contained 
the  elements  of  tragedy. 

Pratinas  of  Phlius  (b.c.  500)  is  said  to  have  invented  the 

*  xxvi.  316D,  oi)  Trpoff^Ojuei'  'ApiffTor^ei  on  .  .  .  Q^ffwii  irpoKoyov  rt 
mU  pTjcnv  i^evpev. 

2  The  fact,  however,  that  Pratinas  is  said  to  have  invented  the  satyric 
drama  may  imply  that  Thespis  gave  up  the  chorus  of  satyrs,  and  that  Pratinas 
reintroduced  them. 

^  Bentley  (OpMSCM?a,  285)  thought  otherwise.  But  the  view  given  in  the 
text  is  also  taken  by  Dahlmann  (Primordia,  8),  Jacob  (Quwst.  Soph.  112), 
Schneider  {Origin.  T.  G.  54),  Welcker  (iVocAf.  256),  and  Hermann  (OptMCr 
viL  218). 


1 86  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

satyric  drama,  and  his  fame  as  a  writer  of  this  kind  of  play 
survived  till  the  time  of  Pausanias.  Of  him  we  have  no  fur- 
ther information,  but  we  may  consider  that  after  his  time 
tragedy  was  distinguished  from  the  satyric  drama,  and  that 
the  chorus  of  satyrs  was  confined  to  the  latter  kind  of  play, 
while  to  tragedy  were  appropriated  the  more  dignified  qualities 
now  associated  with  it. 

Satyric  drama  resembled  tragedy,  inasmuch  as  its  figures  were 
those  of  tragedy,  and  their  characters  were  drawn  with  much 
the  same  majesty  and  in  the  same  outlines  as  those  of  tragedy. 
But  the  subjects  of  the  satyric  drama  were  either  of  a  lighter 
kind,  dealing  with  love  and  wine,  in  order  to  be  in  keeping 
with  the  chorus  of  satyrs,  or,  if  deeds  of  blood  were  introduced, 
they  were,  like  the  blinding  of  Polyphemus,  such  as  would 
rather  enliven  than  sadden  the  audience.  Again,  the  centre  of 
a  Greek  drama  was  the  chorus,  and  the  character  of  the  chorus 
determined  the  character  of  the  play.  As  the  traditional  con- 
ception of  the  satyrs  was  that  of  an  idle  and  mischievous  race, 
it  would  be  obviously  out  of  place  to  expect  from  such  a  chorus 
an)'^  serious  reflections,  or  through  such  a  chorus  any  of  the 
poet's  profounder  speculations.  Between  the  satyric  chorus 
and  the  hero  there  could  be  no  confidences,  or  only  those  of 
a  nature  adapted  to  the  character  of  the  satyrs.  The  satyric 
drama  proper,  with  its  playful  chorus,  its  comic  Silenus,  and 
cheerful  termination,  was  unlike  tragedy  in  many  respects,  but 
it  was  also  unlike  comedy.  The  scene  of  a  satyric  drama  was 
always  laid  in  the  country,  to  suit  the  satyr-chorus.  Its  inci- 
dents were  often  grave,  and  it  was  broadly  distinguished  from 
comedy  by  containing  nothing  which  approached  to  parody. 

The  only  satyric  drama  which  has  come  down  to  us  is  the 
Cyclops  by  Euripides.  The  subject  of  the  play  is,  as  the  name 
indicates,  the  blinding  of  Polyphemus,  the  Cyclops,  by  Odysseus. 
The  scene  in  which  Polyphemus  is  made  drunk  by  Odysseus 
before  being  blinded  is  amusing,  though  rather  long,  and  the 
character  of  Silenus  and  of  the  satyrs  is  also  amusing.  But  the 
humour  is  throughout  quiet  and  somewhat  suppressed,  so  we 
are  inclined  to  believe  that  this  is  not  a  good  specimen  of  the 
satyric  drama.  The  little  information  which  ancient  writers 
give  us  on  the  satyric  dramas  of  ^schylus  and  Sophocles  leads 
to  the  inference  that  their  plays,  in  this  kind,  were  much 
more  boisterous,  contained  more  horse-play,  and  were  somewhat 
coarse. 

Pratinas  is  sometimes  said  to  have  invented  the  satyric 
drama.     This,  however,  must  not  be  taken  to  mean  that  ht 


THE  drama;  early  tragedy.  187 

was  the  first  dramatist  to  introduce  a  chorus  of  satyrs  into  a 
play.  The  tradition  of  antiquity  represents  the  satyr-drama  of 
Pratinas  rather  as  the  revival  of  an  older  than  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  more  advanced  form  of  drama.  Of  satyric  drama, 
however,  as  a  play  which  was  attached  to  a  tragedy  or  tragedies, 
and  could  not  be  performed  independently,  Pratinas  may  be 
regarded  as  the  inventor.  Pratinas  competed  with  -ZEschylus 
and  Choerilus  in  B.c.  500,  and  his  son  Aristias,  who  produced 
some  of  his  father's  satyr-dramas,  was  second  to  .^schylus  in 
the  competition  of  B.C.  468.  According  to  Pausanias,  -^schylus 
alone  wrote  better  satyr-dramas  than  Pratinas  and  Aristias. 

But,  to  return  to  tragedy,  Phrynichus,  the  tragic  poet  (b.c. 
500),  was  a  man  of  greater  mark.  Here  we  have  a  man  whose 
boldness  and  originality  were  such  that  they  betray  themselves 
even  in  the  very  few  facts  known  to  us  about  him,  and  to 
whose  originality  Greek  tragedy  very  probably  owed  much  of 
the  progress  it  made  before  the  time  of  ^schylus.  He  ventured 
not  only  to  abandon  the  myths  connected  with  Dionysus,  but 
to  abandon  myths  altogether,  and  to  take  for  the  subjects  of 
at  least  some  of  his  plays  historical  events.  In  one  of  his 
tragedies  entitled  the  Taking  of  Miletus,  he  so  painfully  affected 
his  audience  that  (according  to  Herodotus)  the  Athenians  in- 
flicted a  fine  on  him  for  reminding  them  so  vividly  of  the  mis- 
fortunes of  a  friendly  state. 

Subsequently  he  was  more  fortunate.  He  selected  the  defeat 
of  the  Persians  as  the  subject  of  his  Pheriician  Women.  Plu- 
tarch says,  on  the  authority  of  an  inscription,  that  Phrynichus 
won  the  tragic  prize  in  B.C.  476,  and  that  Themistocles  was  his 
choregus.  This  it  has  been  supposed  was  the  occasion  on  which 
the  Phenician  Women  was  produced,  and  it  is  not  impossible. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  Phrynichus'  treatment  of  the  subject  shows 
genuine  artistic  power.  The  chorus  consisted  of  Phenician 
women, ^  and  the  scene  was  laid  in  Persia.  Phrynichus  thus 
avoided  the  dangers  that  would  have  attended  any  attempt  to 
represent  on  the  stage  events  at  which  many  of  his  audience 

1  Inasmuch,  however,  as  ol  t'^j  apxHS  Trapedpoi  probably  appeared  in  this 
play,  it  has  been  inferred  that  Phrynichus  subdivided  the  chorus,  and  had, 
in  fact,  two  choruses,  one  of  Plienician  women,  the  other  of  Persian  elders. 
That  th«>  chorus  consisted,  in  Phrynichus'  time,  of  fifty  choreutae  (the  num- 
ber of  Arifta's  cyclian  dithyrambic  chorus)  is  inferred  from  the  fact  that  one 
of  his  I'lays  was  entitled  the  Danaides,  whose  traditional  number  was  fifty. 
From  these  two  inferences  we  may  further  gather  that  it  was  to  this  sub- 
division that  the  reduction  of  the  number  of  the  choreutaa  to  twelve  (the 
number  in  .ffischylus)  was  due.  It  has  also  been  conjectured  that  the  reduc« 
tion  is  connected  with  the  introduction  of  the  tetralogy,  the  choras  of  fiftj 
being  divided  betweeo  Ibe  foiur  plays. 


I  88        EISTOKY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

had  probably  been  present,  while  he  invested  those  events  with 
the  poetry  and  interest  attaching  to  a  representation  conceived 
from  a  new  and  impressive  point  of  view.  By  introducing  the 
news  of  the  Persian  defeat  at  an  early  period  in  the  play,  he 
lost  the  interest  of  expectation  which  might  have  pervaded  the 
tragedy  ;  but  this  was  due  rather  to  the  undeveloped  state  of 
the  drama  in  his  time  than  to  any  fault  of  the  author. 

Eemoved  as  he  was  so  little  from  the  dithyrambic  origin  of 
tragedy,  it  was  natural  that  Phrynichus  should  display  more 
command  of  the  lyric  element  than  of  the  economy  of  the 
drama.  Accordingly  the  Phenidan  Women  consisted  mainly  of 
lamentations  over  the  Persian  defeat,  uttered  probably  by  Atossa 
and  Xerxes.  The  audience  were  agreeably  and  delicately  flat- 
tered, and  the  poet  gained  an  opportunity  of  displaying  his  pecu- 
liar powers. 

It  is  a  tribute  to  the  genius  of  Phrynichus  that  .^schylus, 
when  he  subsequently  took  up  the  same  subject  in  his  Persians, 
adhered  in  several  important  points  to  the  treatment  of  his 
predecessor.  It  is  also  interesting  to  notice  that  in  the  Phe- 
nician  Women  we  observe  the  counter-influence  of  ^schylus 
on  Phrynichus.  The  elder  poet  in  this  play  avails  himself  of 
his  junior's  innovation  by  introducing  a  second  actor.  This 
must  have  conduced  to  freedom  in  the  action  of  the  play, 
though  precisely  to  what  extent  it  did  so  we  are  not  in  a 
position  t*  infer. 

But  Phrynichus  not  only  availed  himself  of  the  innovations 
of  others,  he  was  himself  an  innovator.  He  not  only  developed 
the  music  and  the  dances  ^  of  the  drama,  but  also  introduced  for 
the  first  time  female  characters  on  the  stage.  He  did  this  not 
only  in  the  Phenidan  Women,  but  also  (as  is  indicated  by  the 
titles  of  the  plays)  in  the  Women  of  Pleuron,  the  Daughters 
of  Dandus,  and  the  Alcestis. 

After  B.C.  476  we  hear  no  more  of  Phrynichus,  and  the  earli- 
est date  at  which  he  is  mentioned  as  winning  the  tragic  prize  is 
B.C.  511.  His  contemporary,  Choerilus,  is  said  to  have  appeared 
before  the  public  as  early  as  B.C.  524,  and  to  have  lived  to  a 
great  age.  We  are  not  able,  however,  to  assign  to  him  any 
share  in  the  development  of  tragedy  (though  he  is  said  to  have 
done  something  for  the  costumes  of  the  actors),^  or  to  form  any 
opinion  of  his  merits  as  a  dramatist. ^ 

1  Thus  in  the  Ilv^pixai  the  chorus  probably  danced  an  intricate  sort  ot 
•word-dance. 

^  Kara  rii'at  rots  irpoawireloLS  Kal  Ty  (TKeiry  tCiv  crToKuv  iirexeipyiffe,—' 
Suidas  s.  V.  X. 

'  Photius  (Patriarch  of   Couatantinople  about  A.D.  S50)  quotes  a  versa 


THE  DRAMA  :  EARLY  TRAGEDY. 


189 


APPENDIX  TO  CHAPTER  I. 


METRE,    DIALECT,    AND    DIVISIONS   OP   TRAGEDY. 


Although  the  draiua  had  its  origin 
in  the  choral  songs  in  honour  of 
Dionysus,  the  essence  of  drama  is 
the  dialogue.  In  that  early  stage 
of  the  drama,  when  tragedy  and  the 
satyric  drama  were  not  yet  diffe- 
rentiated, and  when  consequently 
tragedy  proper  was  not  yet  marked 
by  the  stateliness  which  after- 
wards characterised  it,  the  metre  of 
the  dialogue  was  the  trochaic  tetra- 
meter. With  the  separation,  how- 
ever, of  the  satyric  element  from 
tragedy  there  came  a  change  in  the 
metre  of  the  dialogue.  Trochaics 
were  probably  still  the  form  into 
which  the  lively  dialogue  of  the 
satyrs  was  thrown ;  but  for  the 
dialogue  of  tragedy  the  iambic  tri- 
meter was  perceived  to  be  the  ap- 
propriate expression.  Iambics  are 
the  verses  into  which  the  conver- 
sation of  real  life  most  frequently 
unintentionally  fall,  and  iambics 
were  the  verses  into  which  the  con- 
versation of  tragedy  was  instinc- 
tively thrown.  The  tendency  to 
model  the  dialogue  of  tragedy  on 
that  of  life,  which  displayed  itself 
thus  early,  continued  to  develop 
steadily  throughout  the  history  of 
tragedy.  It  shows  itself  partly  in 
the  metrical  constitution  of  the 
verse,  and  i)artly  in  the  disposition 
of  the  verses.  Of  all  the  tragedians, 
iEschylus  observed  the  strictest 
rules  of  versification,  and  his  suc- 
cessors worked  with  greater  free- 
dom, admitting,  eg.,  with  increas- 
ing frequency  divisions  which  he 
avoided.  The  iambic  verse  thus, 
although  it  grew  laxer,  came  to  pos- 
sess more  variety  and  more  move- 
ment, and  to  reflect  more  directly 


the  emotions  of  the  speakers.  The 
disposition  of  the  verses  show."  the 
same  growing  tendency  to  lighl  'less 
and  rapidity  o  t  action.  Set  speef  ^1  es 
of  any  considerable  length  must  re- 
tard the  movement  of  a  play  ;  but 
the  conflict  of  wills,  which  is  the 
basis  of  all  tragedy,  demands  for  its 
adequate  representation  a  duel  of 
words,  in  which  the  thrust  and 
parry  of  argument  follow  on  each 
other  with  the  rapidity  of  foils  in 
a  fencing-match.  Hence  the  prac- 
tice, common  to  all  the  tragedians 
but  less  frequent  in  jEschylus  than 
in  his  predecessors,  of  stichomuthm, 
or  dialogues  in  which  each  speech 
consists  ot  one  line  only.  Hence, 
too,  the  further  j)rocess  (of  which 
only  two  instances  are  to  be  found 
in  yEscliylus,  Sept.  217  and  P.  V. 
980)  of  dividing  a  single  line  be- 
tween two  or  even  three  characters 
(the  portions  of  a  line  thus  divided 
received,  by  a  metaphor  from  v/rest- 
ling,  the  naraedvTtXa/3ai).  Finally 
may  be  here  mentioned  the  recur- 
rence of  interjections  outside  the 
verse  altogether,  a  device  adapted 
for  the  expression  of  outbursts  of 
feeling,  which  is  more  frequent  in 
Euripides  than  in  Sophocles,  and 
in  Sophocles  than  in  iEschylus. 

Vivacity  and  rapidity  were  not 
all  that  was  aimed  at  in  the  dispo- 
sition of  the  iambics  of  tragedy. 
Symmetry  also  was  sought  after ; 
and  as  the  antistrophe  of  a  oiorus 
corresponds  to  the  strophe,  so  the 
iambics  which  stand  connected  with 
the  chorus  not  unfrequently  corre- 
spond in  number.  Hence  the  prac- 
tice of  symmetrical  disposition  ex- 
tended  to  speeches  which  stand  in 


from  an  unknown  poet,  ifviKa  fikv  ^acriKeis  7jv  'KoipiXo^  ev  ffaripoi^  (iii.  32), 
which  is  sometimes  taken  to  mean  that  Choerilus  excelled  in  satyric  drama. 
But  the  passage  is  obscure,  and,  if  it  were  intelligible,  not  knowing  who  was 
the  author,  we  should  not  know  what  value  to  put  on  the  verse  as  evidence. 


ipo 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


DO  connection  with  the  chorus  ;  and, 
especially  in  Euripides,  we  find  that 
in  the  set  speeches  of  two  contend- 
ing persons,  the  number  of  lines  in 
the  reply  corresponds  exactly  to 
that  of  the  speech  to  which  it  is  an 
answer. 

The  dialect  of  the  chorus  is  not 
real  but  conventional  Doric,  because 
the  choral  odes  were  originally 
Doric  dithyrambs,  and  the  various 
kinds  of  literary  composition  tended 
in  Greece  to  adhere  to  the  dialect 
in  which  they  were  first  composed. 
It  is  in  the  history  of  the  chorus 
that  we  find  the  explanation  of  its 
dialect ;  and  there,  too,  we  find  the 
explanation  of  its  metres.  The 
chorus  originated  in  the  worship  of 
Dionysus,  and  thus  it  inherited  and 
transmitted  to  tragedy  the  nume- 
rous kinds  of  metre  which  the  in- 
genuity of  poets  and  the  approval 
of  the  people  had  stamped  as  pecu- 
liarly adapted  for  expressing  the 
various  emotions  roused  by  the 
worship  of  the  wine-god.  Hymns 
of  praise,  processional  songs,  strains 
of  exaltation  or  lamentation,  had 
provided  for  tragedy  various  metri- 
cal systems,  the  dactylic,  anapses- 
tic,  trochaic,  iambic,  iambo-trochaic, 
choriambic,  logaoedic,  and  cretic. 
These  metres  tragedy  worked  out 
in  its  own  way,  developing  some 
and  neglecting  others.  Trochaic 
strophes,  simple  in  structure  and 
profound  in  their  eflect  upon  the 
feelings,  gave  way,  as  tragedy  de- 
veloped its  own  style,  before  iambic 
strophes,  which  adapt  themselves 
more  speedily  to  sudden  changes  of 
feeling.  A  still  further  result  of 
the  tendency  thus  shown  was  the  in- 
troduction— probably  by  Euripides 
— of  iambo-trochaics,  and  the  culti- 
vation of  logaoedic  verses  largely 
to  the  exclusion  of  other  metres. 
But  although  some  metres  were 
thus  specially  cultivated  by  the 
tragedians  the  chorus  was  all  the 
time  declining  in  importance  and 
giving  way  before  the  development 
of  the  essentially  dramatic  elements 
of  the  drama.     Thus  the  lyrics  of 


the  chorus  became  not  only  re« 
duced  in  length,  but  less  carefully 
composed  and  less  wealthy  in  variety 
of  metres. 

The  ode  which  the  chorus  sung 
when  it  first  entered  was  called  the 
Parodos  (Pollux,  iv.  io8,  ^ fiiv et<ro5ot 
ToO  xopov  TrdpoSos  KaXeh ai).  Origi- 
nally it  was  prefaced  by  some  ana- 
paests delivered  by  the  Coryphceus 
or  leader  of  the  chorus  as  it  marched 
in.  Then  the  melic  part  was  sung 
by  the  whole  chorus  grouped  round 
the  altar  or  thymele  in  the  middle 
of  the  orchestra.  After  that,  the 
chorus  took  its  proper  place  between 
the  thymele  and  the  stage.  This 
dated  from  the  time  before  tragedy, 
when  the  dithyramb  was  sung 
round  the  altar  of  Dionysus  in 
honour  of  the  god.  But  in  course 
of  time  the  anapaests  were  dropped, 
and  a  piece  of  music  substituted  in 
their  place.  The  chorus  marched 
straight  to  its  place  in  the  orchestra, 
and  there — not  round  the  altar — 
sang  the  strophe  and  antistrophe  of 
which  the  melic  was  composed.  In 
the  Persians,  the  Suppliants,  and 
the  Rhesus,  the  play  opens  with  the 
parodos  ;  but  in  all  the  other  plays 
we  possess,  the  parodos  is  preceded 
by  a  speech  or  speeches  from  one  or 
more  of  the  actors,  which  speech  or 
speeches  are  called  the  Prologue. 
The  introduction  of  a  prologue  is 
ascribed  to  Thespis  in  a  passage 
professing  to  be  quoted  from  Aris- 
totle (Themistius,  xxvi.  p.  382.  17, 
0()  Trpocr^xoMf  t'^  'ApidTOTiXei  Sti  t4 
fiiv  wpuTov  6  xopos  daiCov  ySev  els 
Toiis  Beovs,  Q^ffTTis  S^  vpbXoyov  re 
Kal  prjcnv  e^evpev).  In  the  Ajax, 
the  Alcestis,  and  the  Helena,  the 
chorus  leaves  the  theatre  in  the 
middle  of  the  play  (e.ff.  in  order 
that  Ajax  may  kill  himself)  ; 
its  re-entry  was  called  Kpiparodos 
(Pollux,  iv.  108,  7}  Si  Kara  XP^^°-* 
l^oSos  u>J  TToXiv  elffiovTiiiv  nerdcTTa- 
ffis,  7]  Si  fiera  raijTTjv  daoSos  iTrnrd- 
poSos). 

The  other  songs  of  the  chorut 
were  called  Stasima,  because  they 
were    sung    by    the    chorus,    no* 


THE  DRAMA  :  EARLY  TRAGEDY. 


191 


whilst  entering  or  at  the  altar,  but 
when  standing  in  its  usual  place 
in  the  orchestra.  The  number  of 
stasima  was  usually  four,  thus 
dividing  the  play  into  five  parts. 
Three  of  these  parts  were  called 
Episodes,  i.e.  the  three  which  were 
both  preceded  and  followed  by  a 
stasimou,  for  the  prologue  and  the 
exodos  were  not  called  episodes. 
The  name  "  episode  "  goes  back  to 
the  time  when  an  actor  was  intro- 
duced to  give  the  chorus  breathing- 
time.  The  chorus  first  made  its 
entrance,  etaodos,  sang  its  dithy- 
ramb, and  then  the  actor  made 
his  appearance,  iireLaoSiov.  Thence 
the  name  episode  was  extended  to 
all  that  occurred  between  two 
stasima.  Normally  the  stasimon 
summarises  and  comments  on  that 
part  of  the  action  of  the  play  which 
precedes  it,  but  in  Euripides  it 
frequently  bears  no  relation  to  it : 
the  chorus  has  become  as  foreign 
to  the  drama  as  the  actor  originally 
was  to  the  dithyramb. 

We  have  considered  those  parts 
of  a  Greek  tragedy  which  are  pecu- 
liar to  the  chorus,  and  those  which 
are  peculiar  to  the  actors  :  we  now 
have  to  examine  those  which  arise 
from  communication  between  the 
chorus  and  the  actors.  With  re- 
spect to  ordinary  dialogue  between 
an  actor  and  the  leader  of  the 
chorus,  there  is  nothing  to  add  to 
what  we  have  said  as  to  dialogue 
between  the  actors  :  it  is  in  iambics 
and  in  conventional  old  Attic.  But 
when  the  actors  enter  into  the 
■nielic  {i.e.  the  part  sung)  of  the 
tragedy,  there  arise  new  divisions 
of  the  play.  First  we  have  the 
Commos  :  the  commos  is  a  lyric  of 
lamentation.  In  metre  and  dialect 
it  resembles  the  other  lyrics  of  the 
chorus,  but  it  differs  from  them  in 
that,  as  the  actors  take  part  in  it, 
it  is  dramatic.  The  stasima  ac- 
company, the  commi  partake  in 
the  action  of  the  play.  Next  we 
have  the  songs  from  the  stage  (to. 
awb  TTJi  (jKrjvfis).  When  once  the 
dramatic  element  had  been  allowed 


in  the  commos  to  have  a  share  in 
the  lyrics,  it  was  inevitable  that  it 
should  encroach ;  and  the  result 
was  the  songs  from  the  stage,  which 
were  lyrics  sung  by  the  actora 
alone,  either  by  several  {to.  dfio^aia) 
or  by  one,  solo  {fiovqiSia).  Eventu- 
ally the  songs  from  the  stage  be- 
came, as  lyrics,  more  important 
even  than  the  chorus,  and  Euri- 
pides carried  the  composition  of 
monodies  to  its  greatest  height. 

The  musical  instrument  used  in 
the  theatre  was  the  flute  ;  not  so 
much,  as  is  sometimes  said,  because 
the  penetrating  notes  of  this  instru- 
ment were  needed  if  the  music  was 
to  be  heard  all  over  the  theatre, 
but  probably  because  of  the  tradi- 
tional connection  of  the  flute  with 
ecstatic  worship,  such,  e.g.  as  that 
of  Cybele,  in  connection  with  which 
the  Greeks  made  their  first  ac- 
quaintance with  the  flute.  There 
seem  to  be  no  grounds  for  thinkiug 
that  the  iambic  trimeter  of  tragedy 
or  of  comedy  was  delivered  in  a  sort 
of  recitative  to  the  accompaniment 
of  the  flute  ;  nor  is  there  any  evi- 
dence that  the  trochaic  tetrameter 
was  accompanied  in  tragedy,  though 
perhaps  it  was  in  comedy.  How 
the  anapaests  were  delivered  is  un- 
certain. When  they  formed  part 
of  the  parodos  of  tragedy  they  must 
have  been  sung,  and  perhaps  were 
always  sung.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  they  were  used  conversation- 
ally in  comedy,  they  must  have 
been  spoken. 

The  lines  of  the  dramatic  poet, 
however,  were  accompanied  not 
only  by  music  but  also  by  dancing. 
With  the  vivacity  of  the  Southern 
temperament,  the  Greeks  found 
dancing  as  natural  an  outlet  for  the 
feelings  as  song,  and  before  the 
drama  rose  there  existed  a  large 
number  of  dances  of  the  most  vari- 
ous  kinds,  ilany  of  these  were 
adopted  by  the  drama,  and  modified 
by  it  to  its  own  requirements. 
These  varied  in  character  from  the 
emmeleia,  the  most  stately  of  the 
dances  in  tragedy,  to  the  indeceni 


192  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

cordax   of  comedy.      To   associate  by  the  movements  and  the  grouping 

dancing  with  tragedy  is  hard  for  of  the  choreutae,  would  naturally 

us  at   the   present   time  ;    but   we  among   the   Greeks   tend    to   taka 

may  understand  it  if  we  reflect  that  harmonious   and    recurring   forms, 

the  chorus  during  the  action  of  the  and  thus  be  "dancing."     In  this 

play  could  not  stand  cold  and  im-  respect,  as  in  ethers,  less  and  less 

passive,  but  must  by  some  byplay  attention  was  paid  to  the  chore?  ai 

have  expressed   the  feelings    sup-  the  drama  developed.    Pratinasand 

posed  to  be  aroused  by  the  events  Phrynichus   made   much   more    of 

of  the  drama ;  and  this  expression  the  dances  of  the  chorus  than  did 

of  feeling  by  gesture  and  attitude,  Sophocles  and  Euripides. 


CHAPTEE   II. 

.aiSCHYLUS. 

The  facts  of  -iEschylus'  life  which  are  known  to  us  are  unfor- 
tunately  insignificant,  alike  in  number  and  in  meaning.  They 
tell  us  little  of  his  mental  growth  or  of  his  artistic  development. 
He  was  born  B.C.  525  and  died  B.c.  456.  These  dates  imply 
that  the  whole  of  the  mature  life  of  .^schylus  fell  in  the  period 
of  the  Persian  wars,  and  so  came  under  the  influence  of  all  the 
feelings  which  the  great  events  of  that  period  caused  or  inten- 
sified among  the  Greeks.  Before  these  wars  the  Greeks  were 
conscious  that  they  were  one  people.  Their  community  of 
language,  customs,  and  religion  was  an  internal  force  and  co- 
hesion which  resulted  in  a  Pan-Hellenic  sentiment.  But  the 
consciousness  of  unity  thus  generated  might  have  remained 
sterile  had  not  hostile  pressure  by  the  Persian  power  brought  it 
into  operation,  and  converted  the  mere  barren  consciousness  into 
a  sentiment  of  Pan-Hellenism  fruitful  both  in  the  world  of 
action  and  the  world  of  thought.  In  later  times,  as  the  fear  of 
the  Persian  passed  away,  the  feeling  of  Pan-Hellenism  again 
ceased  to  be  operative.  But  ./Eschylus  was  exposed  to  the  full 
strength  of  the  sentiment,  and  his  view  of  things  was  much 
influenced  by  it.  He  was  exposed  to  it  not  merely  as  a  Greek, 
but  as  a  citizen  of  that  state  in  which  the  feeling  was  deepest. 
Athens  profited  by  the  sentiment  of  nationality  among  the 
Greeks  at  this  time,  not  because  she  was  looked  upon,  as  was 
Sparta,  as  the  head  of  the  Greeks,  but  in  that  she  made  sacrifices 
for  the  common  interests  and  the  liberty  of  Hellas  unparalleled  in 
Greek  history.  Also  .i-Eschylus'  interest  in  the  public  events  of 
his  time  was  not  merely  that  of  a  spectator — philosophical  or 
political — or  that  of  a  historian,  but  that  of  an  actc  r.     He  fought 


THE  DRAMA  :    .ESCHYLUS,  1 9  3 

with  conspicuous  courage  at  Marathon,  at  Platsea,  and  at  Salamis. 
As  one  of  those  Athenians  who  were  said  (inaccurately)  to  be  tha 
first  Greeks  that  dared  to  even  look  upon  the  Persians,  he  had 
risked  his  life  at  Marathon  and  had  sacrificed  his  home  before 
Salamis,  and  had  thereby  shown  that  he,  like  his  fellow-citizens, 
felt  and  was  proud  of  his  nationality  as  a  Hellene.  And  he  showa 
in  his  poetry  the  effect  which  the  overthrow  of  the  Persian 
Lad  upon  his  religious  views.  To  all  Greeks  the  hand  of  the 
gods  was  clearly  visible  in  the  Persian  defeat.  To  Herodotus  it 
was  only  the  greatest  of  many  instances  of  the  Kemesis  which 
visited  the  too-powerful.  To  ^schylus  it  was  a  confirmation 
of  the  awful  might  of  the  gods  and  the  nothingness  of  the 
mightiest  of  men.  That  the  gods  showed  their  strength  at 
Marathon  and  at  Salamis  was  a  national  conviction,  of  which 
^Eschylus,  least  of  all  men,  could  escape  the  effects.  Born  at 
Eleusis,  he  must  from  his  earliest  years  have  been  moved  by 
the  mysterious  processions  he  beheld  there,  and  still  more  by 
the  mystery  of  the  rites  which  he  was  not  yet  permitted  to  see. 
Sprung,  too,  of  a  noble  family  which  was  connected  with  the 
celebration  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  he  must  have  felt  the 
effect  of  family  traditions  fitted  to  develop  his  speculations  on 
the  might  and  majesty  of  the  gods.  That  his  family  was  noble 
and  had  taken  an  energetic  part  in  politics,  and  that  his  brother 
met  a  glorious  death  at  Marathon,  are  facts  which  go  to  account 
for  the  bold  and  powerful  character  of  the  poet,  but  otherwise 
throw  no  light  on  his  life  or  work. 

.^schylus  died  in  Sicily,  but  whether  he  paid  only  one  visit 
or  more  to  that  island,  there  is  no  evidence  to  show.  If,  as  is 
assumed  with  some  probability,  he  went  there  at  the  invitation 
of  Hiero,  this  must  have  happened  before  Hiero's  death  in  B.C. 
467.  But  as  he  lived  eleven  years  longer,  and  during  this 
period  several  of  his  plays  were  produced  on  the  Athenian  stage, 
it  has  been  supposed  that  he  made  at  least  two,  perhaps  three, 
journeys  to  Sicily.  We  do  not  know,  however,  that  it  was  at 
Hiero's  invitation  he  went  to  Sicily  ;  while,  if  Aristophanes 
could  get  his  comedies  produced  by  friends,  perhaps  the  tra- 
gedies of  ^schylus  could  also  be  put  on  the  stage  in  the  author's 
absen(>.e.  That  yEschylus  composed  a  play,  the  Women  0/ 
yEtna,  in  celebration  of,  or  suggested  by,  the  foundation  of  the 
town  jEtna  in  B.c.  476,  leaves  it  quite  unsettled  whether  he 
was  in  Sicily  immediately  after  that  date ;  nor  does  the  pro- 
phecy in  the  Prometheus  Bound  (372)  of  an  eruption  of  .^tna 
prove  that  he  witnessed  the  eruption  of  B.C.  475  (or  perhaps 
B.O.  479).     And  although  the  poet's  evident  faiaiharity  with 


194  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

fishing  seems  to  indicate  familiarity  with  the  sea,  we  are  not 
thereby  warranted  in  assuming,  as  is  sometimes  done,  that  ha 
went  three  times  to  Sicily. 

More  interesting  are  the  speculations  as  to  the  cause  of  the 
poet's  going  to  Sicily.  It  has  been  generally  assumed  that  he 
did  not  leave  Athens  willingly,  and  explanations,  some  dis- 
creditable to  the  Athenians,  some  discreditable  to  .(EschyluSj 
have  been  put  forward  in  ancient,  and  accepted  in  modem 
times,  but  all  without  evidence.  Some  casual  words  of  Aris- 
totle (N.  E.  III.  ii.)  make  it  probable  that  he  was  accused  of 
revealing  certain  of  the  religious  mysteries.  How  the  accusa- 
tion was  made,  and  what  was  the  issue,  are  alike  unknown,  and 
that  it  led  to  his  retiring  to  Sicily  there  is  nothing  to  show. 
That  iEschylus  was  banished  no  one  asserts  ;  and  if  he  chose  to 
visit  Sicily,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  was  disgusted  with  his 
treatment  at  Athens,  Fifty-two  of  his  plays  are  said  to  have 
received  prizes  at  Athens,  and  this  evinces  the  estimation  in 
which  he  was  held  there.  On  the  other  hand,  we  know  that 
the  people  of  Sicily  had  an  enthusiasm  for  dramatic  poetry  so 
great  that  many  captive  Athenians  after  the  Sicilian  expedition 
owed  their  release  to  their  ability  to  recite  from  Euripides. 
This  enthusiasm,  ami  the  existence  in  Sicily  of  a  court  which 
included  Simonides,  Epicharmus,  and  Pindar  among  its  guests, 
may  be  deemed  in  themselves  sufficient  to  account  for  the  jour- 
ney to  Sicily, 

iEschylus'  attitude  towards  the  politics  of  his  day  has  been 
the  subject  of  much  discussion.  The  Eumenides  was  produced 
in  B.C.  458,  only  two  years  before  his  death,  and  at  a  time  of  great 
political  excitement  in  Athens.  The  oligarchical  party  had  just 
been  defeated  on  both  their  foreign  and  their  home  policy 
Their  foreign  policy  was  alliance  with  Sparta.  Alliance  with 
an  oligarchical  state  was  the  natural  policy  for  the  oligarchical 
party,  and,  further,  was  supposed  to  be  necessary  for  those 
offensive  operations  against  Persia  which  Cimon  conducted 
with  so  much  energy  and  success.  The  home  policy  of  the 
party  consisted  in  opposing  such  changes  in  the  constitution  as 
would  give  more  power  to  the  people,  and  at  this  time  also 
consisted  particularly  in  supporting  the  powers  and  privileges 
of  the  Areopagus  against  the  attacks  of  the  democratic  party. 
Shortly  before  the  production  of  the  Eumenides,  the  Spartans 
had  first  requested  the  assistance  of  the  Athenians  against  a 
revolt  of  the  Helots,  and  had  then  dismissed  the  Athenians  in 
an  insulting  manner.  Such  indignation  was  thereon  felt  in. 
Athens,  that  the  democratic  party  were  enabled  to  breab  off  the 


THE  DRAMA  :    ^SCHYLUS.  1 9  5 

alliance  with  Sparta,  and  to  substitute  for  it  an  alliance  with 
Argos,  the  enemy  of  Sparta.  At  about  the  same  time,  the 
democrats  under  Ephialtes  succeeded  in  depriving  the  Areo 
pagus  of  its  political  powers,  leaving  to  it  only  the  right  of  try- 
ing cases  of  homicide.^ 

It  was  at  this  time  that  ^schylus  chose  to  present,  in  the 
Eumenides,  his  view  on  the  foundations  and  functions  of  the 
Areopagus.  We  might  infer  his  views  from  individual  pas- 
sages of  the  play,  but  it  is  safer  to  rely  upon  its  entire  plot. 
According  to  the  legend  adopted  by  -^schylus,  Clytemestra,"-' 
having  murdered  her  husband,  Agamemnon,  is,  in  accordance 
with  the  express  command  of  Apollo,  herself  put  to  death  by 
her  son  Orestes.  For  killing  his  mother,  Orestes  is  claimed  by 
the  Furies  or  Erinyes,  but  is  protected  by  Apollo.  Eventually 
the  conflicting  claims  of  the  Erinyes  and  Apollo  are  referred  to 
Athene,  who  institutes  the  court  of  the  Areopagus  for  the  pur- 
pose of  deciding  between  them,  and  Orestes  is  acquitted.  The 
fate  of  Orestes  is  the  least  important  part  of  the  Eumenides. 
In  this,  as  in  other  dramas  of  .^schylus,  the  interest  centres 
in  a  great  problem  having  a  religious  and  a  moral  issue.  The 
climax  of  the  play  is,  not  the  release  of  Orestes,  but  the  solu- 
tion of  the  religious  problem.  With  the  early  Greeks,  as  with 
other  primitive  peoples,  the  nearest  relative  of  a  murdered  man 
was  bound  to  avenge  him.  This  duty  involved  the  further 
shedding  of  blood,  that  is  to  say,  the  fulfilment  of  a  moral 
obligation  results  in  the  violation  of  a  moral  law.  These  con- 
flicting duties  (the  moral  side  of  the  problem),  .^schylus  repre 
sents  as  reconciled  by  the  institution  of  a  court,  the  Areopagus, 
which  shall  take  upon  itself  the  decision  of  questions  touching 
homicide.  The  religious  problem  is  to  reconcile  the  commands 
of  Apollo,  the  god  of  vengeance  and  the  representative  of  the 
younger  dynasty  of  gods,  with  the  claims  of  the  Erinyes,  who 
represent  the  older  gods,  and  are  the  punishers  of  those  who 
spill  human  blood.  So  far  as  these  conflicting  claims  are  not 
reconciled  by  the  institution  of  the  Areopagus,  they  are  harmo- 
nised by  the  worship  promised  in  the  play  to  the  Erinyes,  whose 
cult  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  connected  with  the  Areopagus,  and 
is  explained  by  .t^schylus  as  a  compensation  for  any  slight  to 
their  powers  which  might  conceivably  be  regarded  as  resulting 
from  the  foundation  of  the  court  of  the  Areopagus. 

^  Philochorus  in  the  Lexicon  Cantab.  674.  6  :  'E^tdXTTjs  fibva  KarfKiwe  rg 
i^  'A/jeiou  ird70i;  povXy  ra  inrep  rod  (ribfiaTos. 

•  Inscriptions  and  the  best  MSS.  spell  the  name  KXirraifi-Ziffrpa,  which  if 
•upported  by  the  Latin  form,  Clytemestra.   See  Philol.  Wochenschrift,  vi.  391. 


196  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LIlERATURE. 

The  Eumenides  is  sometimes  said  to  be  a  panegyric  on  tha 
Areopagus,  and  sometimes  even  to  have  been  a  call  to  all  good 
men  to  join  in  preserving  to  it  the  political  powers  which  it 
had  long  exercised.  But  it  is  probable  that  the  Eumenides  was 
produced  after  the  reforms  of  Ephialtes ;  and  as  ^schylus  re- 
presents the  Areopagus  to  have  been  founded  to  try  cases  of 
homicide,  the  very  class  of  cases  which  Ephialtes  left  to  it,  it 
is  more  reasonable  to  regard  the  play  as  having  been  intended 
to  reconcile  those  who  strove  for  the  preservation  of  the 
political  powers  of  the  Areopagus  to  the  new  state  of  things, 
which  ^schylus  shows  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  original 
nature  of  the  court.  This  view  receives  some  support  from  the 
fact  that  the  alliance  with  Argos,  to  which  the  oligarchical 
party  was  opposed,  is  also  shown  by  yEschylus  (727  et  seq.) 
to  be  in  harmony  with  tradition,  myth,  and  religion. 

In  the  history  of  the  Greek  drama  our  guiding  clue  through- 
out is  the  changing  position  of  the  chorus.  It  was  out  of  the 
chorus  of  Dionysus  that  the  drama  was  developed,  and  even 
when  an  actor  had  been  assigned  a  part  in  this  form  of  the 
worship  of  Dionysus,  his  share  was  relatively  much  smaller  than 
that  of  the  chorus.  A  second  and  a  third  actor  were  added,  and 
the  functions  of  the  chorus  were  correspondingly  reduced  in  ex- 
tent and  importance,  until  in  the  drama  of  Euripides  the  chorus 
has  no  organic  relation  to  the  play,  but  becomes  a  mere  cus- 
tomary incident,  which,  being  meaningless,  has  become  little 
better  than  a  hindrance.  By  the  aid  of  this  clue  we  may  trace 
not  only  the  general  history  of  the  drama,  but  the  artistic  de- 
velopment of  that  of  iEschylus.  The  introduction  of  a  second 
actor  was  his  work ;  it  is,  however,  probable  that  such  a  change 
would  not  be  made  by  iEschylus  in  the  first,  or  even  the  second 
play  he  wrote,  but  only  Avhen  he  had  had  some  experience  in 
composition,  and  had  come  to  feel  the  need  of  such  a  change, 
and  the  advantages  which  it  would  bring.  Of  the  first  stage  of 
his  work,  when  the  whole  action  of  the  play  was  carried  on  be- 
tween the  chorus  and  a  single  actor,  we  have  nothing  left ;  no 
play,  no  fragment  of  one,  and  not  even  the  name,  so  far  as  we 
know,  of  a  play.  Nor  are  the  seven  extant  plays  all  capable  of 
being  played  by  two  actors ;  the  so-called  trilogy,  consisting  of 
the  Agamemnon,  the  Clwepliori  ,and  the  Eumenides,  requires  three 
actors  ;  and  although  the  Prometheus  Bound  might,  by  the  aid  of 
ji  supernumerary,  be  played  by  means  of  two  actors'  only,  it  was 
more  probably  performed  by  three.  The  introduction  of  a  third 
actor  was  the  work  of  Sophocles.  The  plays  of  /Eschylus  above 
mentioned  must,  therefore,  be  later  in  time  than  this  innovation 


THE  drama:  ^schylus.  197 

by  Sophocles,  and  are  the  latest  works  by  yEschylus  which  wo 
possess.  The  three  remaining  works,  the  Persians,  the  Seven 
against  Thebes,  and  the  Sujipliants,  therefope  most  probably 
belong  to  the  period  after  ^schylus  used  one  actor  and  before 
he  advanced  under  the  influence  of  Sophocles  to  the  use  of  three 

In  the  history  of  Hterature  the  Persians  is  interesting  as  show- 
ing how  gradual  was  the  development  of  the  Greek  drama,  and 
how  far  even  genius  such  as  that  of  -^schylus  is  fettered  by  the 
usage  of  the  time.  The  Persians  is  indeed  the  only  historical 
drania  in  Greek  literature  which  we  possess,  but  it  was  not 
the  only  one  written.  The  Phenician  Women  of  Phrynichua 
was  on  the  same  subject  as  the  Persians,  and  ^schylus  has  bor- 
rowed from  his  predecessor's  play.  In  the  Phenician  Women 
the  scene  was  laid  in  Persia,  with  true  artistic  feeling ;  for, 
properly  to  view  the  exploit  of  Hellas  some  perspective  was 
necessary :  that  of  time  was  inapplicable,  and  that  of  distance 
was  substituted  ;  and  ^schylus  showed  his  power  as  an  artist  in 
borrowing  this  mode  of  treating  the  subject  from  Phrynichus. 

The  slowness  of  the  early  growth  of  the  drama  is  shown  by 
the  Persians  in  another  respect.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Greek 
drama  only  two  kinds  of  poetry  were  known  to  the  Greeks — the 
epic,  in  which  a  story  was  told,  and  the  lyric,  in  which  the 
emotions  of  the  poet  were  expressed.  The  Greeks  had  not  the 
literature  of  a  more  advanced  nation  before  them  from  which  to 
learn  that  the  essence  of  the  drama  is  that  the  actions  which 
narrative  poetry  relates  should,  in  a  play,  be  actually  done  by 
the  actors  in  the  view  of  the  spectators.  The  Greek  dramatists 
were  not  only  without  tliis  knowledge,  but  they  did  not  even 
rapidly  attain  to  it.  They  for  some  time  modelled  their  drama- 
tic works  on  the  only  two  kinds  of  poetry  with  which  they  had 
any  acquaintance,  the  epic  and  the  lyric.  Thus  the  real  subject 
of  the  Persians  is  the  conflict  of  Xerxes  with  the  Greeks ;  but 
no  attempt  is  made  to  put  this  on  the  stage  ;  it  is  brought  before 
the  auiience,  not  as  a  dramatist  would  now  be  expected  to  bring 
it,  but  as  an  epic  poet  would  have  done,  i.e.  it  is  simply  related 
by  a  iNIessenger. 

The  third  point  in  which  the  Pei'sians  illustrates  the  imma- 
turity of  the  drama  at  this  time  is  the  little  use  to  which  the 
second  actor  is  put.  What  dialogue  there  is  in  the  play  is 
mainly  carried  on  between  the  chorus  and  one  of  the  actors, 
not  between  the  two  actors  ;  and  thus  in  this  respect  iEschylus, 
although  he  uses  two  actors  in  his  play,  gets  little  more  out  of 
them  than  could  have  been  effected  by  the  use  of  one. 

As  to  the  date  of  the  Suppliants,  there  is  no  external  evidence 


1 98  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

and  its  composition  and  style  do  not  enable  us  to  setth  its  date 
relatively  to  the  Persians  and  the  Seven  against  Thebes.  The 
action  of  a  story  may  be  said  to  consist  of  the  attempt  of  a 
central  figure  to  do  something,  and  of  the  opposition  encoun- 
tered by,  and  the  consequences  following  on,  this  effort.  In  an 
epic  this  action  is  related  ;  in  the  drama  it  should  be  acted  before 
the  audience.  Now  in  this  respect  the  Suppliants  as  a  "work  of 
art  is  in  advance  of  both  the  other  plays.  In  the  Persians  tho 
formal  influence  of  the  epic  is  still  so  strong,  that  the  action  of 
the  play  is  related,  not  acted.  In  the  Seven  against  Thebes 
the  action  of  the  play  is  partly  carried  on  before  the  spectator, 
inasmuch  as  the  central  figure,  Eteocles,  appears  on  the  stage, 
although  the  opposing  figi;re,  Polynices,  does  not  appear,  but 
is  only  heard  of.  In  the  Siippliants,  both  the  central  figvires, 
the  chorus  and  the  herald,  the  representative  of  the  sons  of 
.^gyptus,  come  upon  the  stage,  and  thus  the  attempt  of  the 
chorus  to  obtain  protection  in  Argos  is  made,  and  opposed, 
and  carried  out  before  the  eyes  of  the  spectator.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  SiippHiants  is  in  some  respects  less  mature  than  the 
Seven.  The  latter  play  requires  a  supernumerary  in  addition  to 
the  two  actors,  while  the  Suppliants  contains  only  three  char- 
acters and  needs  only  two  actors.  More  important  is  it  that 
in  the  Suppliants  the  chorus,  both  in  the  number  of  lines 
assigned  to  it  and  in  its  importance  for  the  plot,  occupies  the 
greater  part  of  the  play.  On  the  ground,  then,  th.  .  the  advance 
of  the  drama  may  in  some  degree  be  measured  by  the  decline 
of  the  chorus,  the  Seven  might  be  put  later  tlian  the  Suppliants, 
But  the  Eumenides  may  serve  to  show  us  that  logical  develop- 
ment and  chronological  succession  are  not  always  identical,  for 
the  chorus  plays  a  more  important  part  in  the  Eumenides  than 
in  the  Seven,  yet  the  Eumenides  is  undoubtedly  later  in  date. 

For  the  date  of  the  Prometheus  Bound  there  is  no  external 
evidence,  except  that  the  allusion  to  the  eruption  of  iEtna  in 
B.C.  475  shows  that  it  is  later  than  that  year  ;  and  if,  as  ia 
probable,  three  actors  were  employed  in  the  play,  it  belongs  to 
a  later  period  than  the  three  plays  already  described.  This 
conclusion  is  strengthened  by  general  consideration  of  the  style 
of  the  play.  It  is  less  stiff  than  the  previous  dramas ;  there 
is  a  reduction  of  the  part  assigned  to  the  lyrical  element,  and 
the  dialogue  is  more  dominant.  The  myth  of  Prometheus,  as 
treated  by  .^schylus,  differs  from  the  version  of  Hesiod.  Ac- 
cording to  Hesiod,  Prometheus  instigated  mankind  to  cheat 
Zeus  of  his  off'erings.  In  requital  of  this,  Zeus  deprived  men 
of  fire.     Prometheus  stole  fire  from  heaven  and  again  gave  it  to 


THE  DRAMA:    iESCHYLUS.  1 99 

mau  For  this  Prometheus  was  punished  by  Zeus,  ^schyhis 
makes  or  avails  liimself  of  a  di  He  rent  version.  In  the  struggle 
between  Zeus  and  the  elder  gods,  Prometheus  had  at  first  taker 
the  side  of  the  latter;  but  the  Titans  disdained  his  wisdom, 
and  he  went  over  to  Zeus.  But  Zeus,  after  his  victory  over 
the  Titans,  prepared  to  destroy  mankind  and  to  create  a  new 
race.  To  this  Prometheus  was  opposed.  He  therefore  gave 
to  man  what  (according  to  this  version)  man  had  not  possessed 
before — fire  and  the  seeds  of  civilisation.  Zeus  condemned 
Prometheus,  for  thus  opposing  his  design,  to  be  nailed  to  a 
rock  in  Scythia.  At  this  point  the  Prometheus  Bound  begins. 
Hephaestus  and  two  attendants  bring  in  Prometheus,  taunt  him, 
and  nail  him  through  the  chest  to  a  huge  rock.  To  their 
taunts  Prometheus  answers  nothing ;  only  when  his  torturers 
have  departed  does  he  appeal  to  earth,  and  sky,  and  sea  to 
witness  his  unjust  suffering.  The  chorus,  the  daughters  of 
Ocean,  now  enter,  in  sympathy  with  and  compassion  for  Pro- 
metheus, who  tells  them  that  a  danger,  the  secret  of  which  he 
alone  knows,  threatens  Zeus.  The  old  god  Ocean  then  comes 
and  tries  to  show  Prometheus  how  unreasonable  is  his  resist- 
ance to  Zeus;  but  Prometheus  will  not  hear  him.  There 
follows  a  long  episode,  in  which  lo,  another  victim  of  Zeus, 
appears  in  the  course  of  her  frenzied  wanderings.  Prometheus 
foretells  that  Zeus  will  be  overthrown  by  a  descendant  of  lo, 
and  she  departs.  The  daughters  of  Ocean  again  try  to  per- 
suade Prometheus  to  make  his  peace  with  Zeus,  but  he  will 
not  be  persuaded.  Then  Hermes  enters,  bearing  the  order  of 
Zeus  that  Prometheus  shall  reveal  his  secret,  and  threatening 
him  in  case  of  contumacy ;  but  Prometheus  will  not  be  com- 
pelled, and  the  play  ends  as  Zeus  dispatches  Prometheus,  amid 
thunder  and  lightning,  to  Tartarus. 

iEschylus'  work  has  often  been  compared  to  statuary,  and  the 
comparison  particularly  illustrates  the  nature  of  his  plots.  Each 
play  consists  of  a  single  situation  and  of  a  very  slight  amount 
of  action.  The  monotony  which  might  be  expected  from  so 
rudimentary  a  form  of  drama  is,  however,  relieved  in  several 
■ways.  Although  there  is  little  or  no  action,  there  is  a  gradation 
of  interest  which  reaches  its  climax  in  the  central  situation ; 
light  and  shade  in  the  picture  are  produced  by  variety  of  inci- 
dent, and  simple  but  powerful  contrasts  are  attained  by  the 
grouping  of  figures.  The  play  falls  into  three  parts,  each  marked 
by  the  entrance  of  a  fresh  character,  whose  appearance  gives  the 
motive  or  key  to  what  follows.  In  this  we  see  the  force  of 
tradition.     When  only  one  actor  appeared  in  a  tragedy,  he  ap- 


200        HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

peared  successively  in  different  parts,  changing  his  costumo 
during  a  choral  ode,  and  although,  Avith  the  introduction  of  a 
second  and  a  third  actor,  the  necessity  for  this  severe  distrihu- 
tion  of  the  play  ceased,  the  distribution  was  not  at  once  cast 
aside.  Even  in  the  Agamemnon,  the  greatest  of  the  works  of 
^schylus,  this  tripartite  division  of  the  play  is  observed.  Yet 
not  only  is  the  Agamemnon  the  grandest  of  the  plays  of  ^schy- 
lus,  but  the  command  which  it  shows  of  the  advances  thea 
being  made  in  the  management  of  the  drama  by  Sophocles 
indicates  that  it  must  be  one  of  the  latest.  A  third  actor  ia 
required,  and  the  chorus  is  increased  to  fifteen  choreutae.  The 
character  of  Clytemestra  is  drawn  in  such  detail  as  shows  the 
influence  of  Sophocles  on  his  rival.  Pathos  appears,  for  the 
first  time,  in  the  treatment  of  Cassandra,  and  the  irony  which 
is  distinctive  of  Sophocles  is  clearly  to  be  discovered  in  the 
A  gamemnon. 

The  Choeplwri  is  but  little  connected  with  the  Agamemnon. 
Each  drama  is  independent  of  the  other.  The  connection  of 
the  Clioephori  w'+li  the  Eumcnides  is  closer.  The  latter  drama 
takes  up  the  sxn,ry  of  the  former  immediately,  and  the  scene  of 
the  Eumenides  (Delphi)  is,  as  it  were,  formally  announced  at 
the  end  of  the  Choephori. 

The  characters  of  ^schylus  are  not  drawn  with  minute  detail, 
but  in  majestic  outline.  There  is  little  of  the  psychological 
analysis  which  is  the  result  of  a  developed  art.  His  figures 
are  commanding  or  terrible,  and  their  very  silence  is  such  as  to 
inspire  awe.^  In  \h.(i  Persians,  the  queen-mother,  Atossa,  listens 
in  long  and  painful  silence  to  the  news  of  the  Persian  disaste^A 
In  the  Prometheus  Bound,  Prometheus  endures  in  impressive 
silence  all  the  taunts  of  his  mocking  torturers.  In  the  Aga- 
memnon, Cassandra  is  present  but  speechless,  whilst  Clytemestra 
receives  with  over-acted  affection  the  husband  she  is  about  to 
murder.  iEschylus'  employment  of  the  eloquence  of  silence  is 
interesting,  not  merely  because  of  its  effect  in  his  hands,  but 
because  it  illustrates  vividly  the  art  wifeh  which  he  turns  to 
advantage  the  very  obstacles  which  the  rudimentary  state  of 
the  drama  in  his  time  threw  in  his  way.  "V\nien  the  dramatist 
had  only  two  actors  to  perform  a  play,  he  might,  by  means  of 
supernumeraries,  have  on  the  stage  more  than  two  characters  at 
once,  as  in  the  Promptheus  Bound.  Prometheus  and  his  tor- 
turers, Hephaestus,  Kratos,  and  Bia,  are  all  on  together,  but 
only  two  of  them  could  speak.     It  was  no  doubt  this  enforce  i 

I  Aristoph.  Frogt,  93a.  ^  PerstR,  294. 


THE  DRAMA:    ^SCHYLUS.  20I 

silence  which  suggested  to  ^scliylus  the  dramatic  use  to  wliich 
Bilence  might  be  put. 

Although  ^schyhis'  characters  are  drawn  with  powerful  and 
decided  outlines,  and  are  further  brought  out  by  contrasts,  such 
as  tliat  between  the  royal  Agamemnon  and  the  wretched  -^gis- 
thus,  whose  courage  consists  in  sharing  the  benefit  and  the  dis- 
grace, but  not  the  danger  of  the  murder ;  his  characters  have 
this  common  fault,  that,  high  or  low,  free  or  slave,  messenger  or 
king,  they  all  speak  with  the  same  exalted  and  majestic  words 
and  metaphors. 

In  two  respects  the  character-drawing  of  the  Agamemnon 
differs  from  that  of  other  plays  of  ^schylus.  Elsewhere  his 
figures  are  majestic  or  terrible.  In  the  character  of  Cassandra 
alone  is  ^schylus  pathetic.  When  the  spirit  of  prophecy  leaves 
her  she  becomes  a  thorough  woman,  and  a  woman  whose  mis- 
fortunes and  impending  death  unite  to  touch  us  with  a  pity 
which  ^schylus  does  not  at  other  times  appeal  to.  In  the 
delineation  of  Clytemestra  we  have  detailed  work  such  as  is  not 
to  be  found  elsewhere  in  ^schylus.  In  the  quiet  contempt 
with  which,  in  almost  her  first  words,  she  receives  the  chorus' 
suggestion  that  she  has  learnt  the  news  of  Troy's  fall  by  means 
of  a  dream,  she  reveals  her  impiety.  Her  unwomanly  self- 
reliance  is  shown  in  the  disdain  with  which  throughout  she 
ignores  the  Argive  elders.  To  appreciate  this,  we  should  com- 
pare her  with  Atossa  in  the  Persians,  ^schylus'  type  of  a 
womanly  woman,  Atossa,  in  the  same  situation  as  Clytemestra, 
puts  a  belief,  fully  justified  by  the  event,  in  the  dreams  sent  by 
I^ven,  consults  the  chorus  of  aged  Persians,  and  follows  their 
advice  with  the  most  implicit  reliance.  In  the  welcome  with 
which  Clytemestra  receives  Agamemnon,  the  unreality  of  hei 
words  is  delicately  revealed  by  the  rhetoric  with  which  she 
slightly  overacts  her  part,  and  by  the  self-consciousness  with 
which  she  hastens  to  assure  Agamemnon  that  she  is  not  deceiv- 
ing him.  Up  to  this  point  of  the  play,  any  indications  of  her 
real  feelings  which  have  escaped  her  have  been  involuntary. 
When,  however,  Agamemnon  is  safely  in  her  toils  and  she  is 
left  alone  with  Cassandra,  then  Clytemestra,  partly  in  her  secu- 
rity and  partly  in  her  hatred  of  Cassandra,  loses  a  little  of  her 
self-restraint,  anJ.,  with  all  the  virulence  of  a  bad  woman's 
hatred,  taunts  the  unfortunate  Trojan  princess  with  being  a 
slave.  To  all  Clytemestra's  attempts  to  extort  a  word  from  her, 
Cassandra  replies  with  a  silence  more  powerful — in  a  woman 
above  all — than  words.  Clytemestra  then  enters  the  palace  t« 
commit  her  crime,  and  when  afterwards  she  is  revealed  in  the 


202  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

triumph  of  her  deed,  she  glories  in  what  she  has  done  with  an 
intensity  of  passion  terrible  even  for  ^schylus.  This  speech, 
which  is  soaked  with  blood,  is  the  culmination  of  the  violence 
of  Clytemestra's  character.  The  reaction  now  slowly  begins. 
Hitherto,  absorbed  in  the  excitement  of  entrapping  her  prey, 
she  has  had  no  thought  for  aught  else.  Now  she  begins  to 
justify  her  work,  and  her  self-justification  and  her  self-reliance 
are  of  so  little  avail  that  she  must  openly  declare  that  she  looks 
for  her  "great  shield  of  courage"  to  ^gisthus,  who  even  yet 
has  not  mustered  spirit  enough  to  crawl  from  his  hiding-place. 

The  chorus  in  the  ^schylean  drama  has  a  double  function. 
As  the  representative  of  the  lyrical  element  of  the  drama,  it  is 
the  means  by  which  ^schylus  conveys  specvdations  on  moral 
and  religious  problems,  a  belief  in  the  justice  of  the  gods, 
and  above  all  in  the  righteousness  of  Zeus.^  On  the  other 
hand,  the  chorus  takes  a  part  in  the  action  of  the  play.  The 
actors  represent  gods  or  heroes  ;  the  chorus  represents  average 
humanity.  2  Accordingly  we  find  in  ^schylus  the  character  of 
the  chorus  drawn  in  Srm  outlines.  In  the  Agamemnon,  the 
chorus  is  composed  of  old  men,  and,  as  is  natural  in  old  men, 
they  like  to  dwell  on  old  memories,^  they  prefer  the  gloomy 
view  of  things,^  are  doubtful  and  cautious,^  and  are  reliant  on. 
oracles  and  dark  sayings.^  At  the  same  time,  old  and  weak  as 
they  are,  under  the  spur  of  a  crime  so  revolting  to  humanity  as 
that  of  Clytemestra,  they  speak  out  in  open  condemnation  "^  and 
brave  ^gisthus'  threats.^ 

In  the  Prometheus,  as  in  the  Eumenides,  the  chorus,  although 
not  of  mortals  but  of  goddesses,  has  a  distinct  character,  and  the 
character  of  the  chorus  of  Oceanides  is  specially  interesting, 
because  it  shows  that  although  ^schylus  habitually  worked  in 
colours  almost  oppressively  sombre,  it  was  possible  for  him  to 
reach  the  highest  level  of  art  when  painting  what  is  bright  and 
fair.  From  the  time  of  Aristophanes  ^  at  least,  the  choric  odes 
of  -5j]schylus  have  been  accused  of  excessive  length,  and  their 
length  is  one  of  the  consequences  of  the  original  predominance 
of  the  chorus  and  the  rudimentary  state  of  the  drama  in  his 
time,  Although  by  the  introduction  of  a  second  actor  he  made 
the  dialogue  the  most  important  part  of  the  drama,^"  still,  like 
the  speeches  of  the  actors,  the  odes  of  the  choms  for  some  time 
retained  an  inordinate  length.  These  long  speeches  and  odes 
are,  from  a  modern  point  of  view,  a  drag  upon  the  action  of  the 

1  E.J.  Ag.  155-161,  167-171,  360  ff,  -  Aristot.  Proh.  xix.  40. 

»  Ag.  104  ff.       4  lb.  120.        6  lb.  462,  1315.      6  lb.  104  ff. 

'  lb.  1378.         8  lb.  164  ff.    »  Frogs,  879.         ">  Aristot.  Poetics,  iv.  16, 


THE  drama:    iESCHYLUS.  203 

play,  anJ  contribute  largely  to  the  immobility  of  the  iEschylean 
drama.  On  the  other  hand,  the  variety  of  emotions  depicted  in 
an  ode  gave  an  amount  of  light  and  shade  which,  to  a  people 
accustomed  to  recitations  and  new  to  the  drama,  doubtless, 
compensated  greatly  for  the  absence  of  dramatic  action. 

In  the  style  of  ^schylus  we  see  the  man.  His  indepen- 
dence and  force  of  character  are  shown  in  the  words  he  coined,* 
in  his  martial  expressions,^  in  his  fondness  for  imagery  drawn 
from  the  action  of  the  more  pugnacious  or  dangerous  animals,^ 
from  the  chase,*  from  field  or  river  sports,^  and  his  naval 
metaphors.^  His  metaphors  and  similes  are  usually  bold,  and 
sometimes  startling  ;  thus  Iphigenia  is  described  as  having,  not 
a  fair  face,  but  a  fair  prow  ; '''  the  sea  covered  with  floating 
corpses  after  a  storm  is  likened  to  a  field  spotted  over  with 
flowers  ;  and  Clytemestra  compares  herself,  drenched  with  the 
blood  of  her  husband,  to  a  field  wet  with  rain  from  heaven. 

To  claim  simplicity  for  ^schylus'  style  may  sound  para- 
doxical, but  his  type  of  sentence  is  simple.  He  prefers  co- 
ordinate to  subordinate  sentences,  and  asyndeton  and  anacolu- 
thon  by  their  frequent  occurrence  mark  an  early  simplicity  of 
syntax.  His  obscurity  is  largely  due  to  his  abundant  meta- 
phors ;  these  are  based  on  close  observation  of  nature,^  but  are 
too  luxuriant.  He  suffers  from  a  plethora  of  ideas  and  a  pleo- 
nasm of  imagery,  and  hence  becomes  obscure.  But  this  is 
throughout  the  spontaneous  overflow  of  a  poet's  mind,  and  not 
the  overcrowded  decoration  of  artificial  and  laboured  rhetoric. 

The  seven  plays  by  ^schylus  which  we  have  were  certainly 
far  from  being  the  only  plays  he  wrote.  The  rest  have,  how- 
ever, perished,  and  all  we  know  about  them  is  what  is  to  be  in- 
ferred from  the  quotations  made  from  them  by  various  ancient 
writers.  These  quotations,  wlien  gathered  together  and  placed 
under  the  names  of  the  plays  from  which  they  were  quoted,  are 

*  E.g.  in  the  Agamemnon : — Se/nvioT'i^prii,  yvio^ap-^s,  \ayo8aiTr)9,  Kevayyi^i, 
iraXiJTi/XTjs,  6pdo5arjs,  TroKvKavrjs,  (povoXijBi^s,  ooixo(j(pa\'{]t,  dpxvy^^V^,  ev^iXr)^, 
iyilxi0Tr\-qdrj3,  Tra\i.p.fxr]Ki)s,  alvoKa/xirrii,  /xeXafxirayris,  vvKTi)p^<pr}S,  bfioiovpetr-qi, 
^pevo/xavris,  \iij.66vt)S,  Ifforpi^rjs,  dT]iJ.oppi<pris,  and  for  others  cf.  Mitchell's 
Frogs,  788. 

^  E.g.  xapbs  eK  SopnriiXTov,  "on  the  spear-throwing  hand,"  for  the  right 
kacd,  Ag.  115  ;  or  ywaiKbs  alxfiv  for  "a  woman's  disposition," 

*  E.g.  vultures,  Ag.  49;  eagles,  Ag.  114,  Cho.  239;  lions,  Ag.  696; 
wolves,  Cho.  413 ;  vipers,  Cho.  240  ;  snakes,  Pers,  8r. 

*  E.ff.  Ag.  125,  840,  1062,  1156,  1347 ;  Cho.  567;  Fert.  97. 
»  E.g.  Ag.  349,  675,  1015,  1030,  1061,  1155,  1346,  1601. 

'  E.g.  Ag.  775,  976  et  seq.,  1596  ;  Cho.  381. 
'  arbixaroi  KaWivpi^pov,  Ag.  227. 
»  For  this  of.  Ag.  548.  865,  887. 


204  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

called  the  "  Fragments  "  of  ^Eschylus.  The  play  f nni)  which 
more  quotations  happen  to  have  been  made  by  ancient  writers 
than  from  any  other  is  the  Prometheus  Unbound.  The  reason 
is  that  in  the  Prometheus  Unbound  vEschyhis  inserted  soma 
geographical  descriptions  deaHng  with  remote  nations,  which 
proved  to  be  i;seful  to  later  writers  on  geography,  such  as  Strabo 
(born  B.C.  66,  died  a.d.  24)  or  Arrian  (born  about  B.C.  100), 
who  quoted  from  them. 

Many  of  the  citations  from  ^schylus  occur  in  lexicographers, 
such  as  Hesychius  (who  lived  about  a.d.  400),  who  inserted  in 
their  lexicons  strange  or  remarkable  words  found  in  the  tra- 
gedians, and  explained  them,  appending  the  name  of  the  play 
in  which  they  occurred.  Many  quotations,  also,  consisting  of 
single  words,  occur  in  the  grammarians  of  various  periods,  who 
quote  to  prove  the  usage  of  Attic  writers.  From  such  quota- 
tations  as  these  we  can  learn  little  more  than  the  names  of  the 
lost  plays,  and  we  find  the  names  of  altogether  eighty-two. 
Many  of  these  plays  were  on  the  same  subjects,  and  some  have 
the  same  names,  as  those  of  later  tragedians.  Thus  .^schylue 
as  well  as  Euripides  wrote  an  Iphigenia  and  a  HeracUdce.  The 
Bassarides  and  Edoni  were  on  the  same  subject  as  the  Bacchce  of 
Euripides.  The  Wom,en  of  ^tna  was  probably  an  outcome  of 
the  tragedian's  visit  to  Sicily.  The  Psychostasia  or  Weighing 
of  the  Souls  seems,  according  to  the  description  of  it  given  by 
Plutarch,  to  have  been  very  characteristic  of  ^Eschylus.  In  the 
first  place,  the  author  had  the  daring  to  lay  the  scene  in  heaven 
(this  we  learn  from  Pollux,  iv.  130,  a  grammarian  who  lived 
about  A.D.  180).  This  was  probably  the  only  time  in  the  Greek 
drama  that  Zeus  was  brought  before  the  eyes  of  the  spectators. 
Next,  he  took  the  subject  from  Homer ;  third,  as  in  the  Eume- 
nides  he  put  into  visible  shape  the  Furies,  who  up  to  that  time 
existed  for  the  Greeks  only  as  vague  and  shapeless  terrors  of  the 
mind  ;  so  in  the  Weighing  of  the  Souls  he  actually  made  Zeus 
weigh  the  souls  of  Hector  and  Achilles  in  a  pair  of  scales.^ 
Lastly,  he  who  had  done  so  much  for  the  Greek  stage  and  the 
accessories  of  the  drama  invented  for  this  play  probably  a  special 

^  It  is  interesting  to  note  tliat  Aristophanes,  who  w.is  to  comedy  nrhat 
./Eschyhis  was  to  tragedy,  possessed  the  same  boldness  of  conception,  and  in 
tlie  same  way  gave  bodily  form  to  a  metaphor  or  a  simile  (see  helow  ch.  vii. ) 
Indeed,  part  oi  the  Frogs  contains  a  "  weighing  of  the  souls  "of  ./Eschylusand 
Eurii)ides,  done  by  means  of  a  pair  of  "  j)roperty  "  scales.  It  is  also  iutttreet- 
ing  to  note  that  later  the  "  Honieioniastix  "  seized  on  precisely  the  passage 
of  Homer  on  which  the  Psychostasia  is  based  to  ridicule  Homer.  Both 
.^schylus  and  the  Homeromastix  seem  to  have  been  igncTaut  of  the  specific 
difference  between  dramatic  and  narrative  poetry. 


THE  drama:    iESCHYLUS.  20  5 

stage,  high  in  the  air,  on  which  he  made  Zeus  and  the  other 
gods  appear. 

Finally,  there  are  a  number  of  quotations  from  the  lost  plays 
of  ^schylus  in  an  antholocry  made  by  Stobaeus  (about  a.d.  520), 
which  shows  that,  even  then,  many  plays  survived  which  have 
since  been  lost.  These  quotations  were  apparently  chosen  by 
StobsBus  on  account  of  their  general  applicability  to  life  and 
human  affairs,  ratlier  than  because  they  surpassed  in  poetic 
merit  the  rest  of  the  play  from  which  they  were  taken,  e.g. 
"  useful,  not  extensive,  knowledge  makes  the  sage,"  or  "bad 
men  successful  are  not  to  be  borne."  "  Brass  is  the  mirror  of 
the  body,  wine  of  the  mind,"  may  remind  us  that  water  and 
brass  were  what  the  Greeks  used  as  looking-glasses.  Late 
learning,  which  provoked  the  mirth  of  Plato  and  Theophrastus, 
is  not  always  matter  for  raillery.  '•  To  learn  wisdom  is  an  honour 
even  to  the  aged."  Until  Christianity  taught  us  otherwise,  men 
held  that  "  death  is  preferable  to  a  hard  life,  and  to  never  be, 
better  than  to  have  been  born  to  suffer."  Again,  ^schylus  said, 
"  An  oath  is  no  pledge  for  a  man  ;  the  man  is  the  pledge  for  the 
oath."  If  "a  fool  fortunate  is  a  grievous  burden,"  yet  there  is 
a  word  of  hope  for  us  in  "  Heaven  helps  the  man  who  works." 

The  sons  of  .^^schylus,  and  his  descendants  for  some  genera- 
tions, appear  to  have  followed  the  dramatic  profession,  as  also 
did  those  of  Sophocles  and  Euripides ;  and  it  is  accordingly 
usual  to  speak  of  the  family  or  school  of  .^^schylus,  or  Sophocles, 
or  Euripides.  There  is,  however,  no  evidence  to  show  that 
such  a  school  worked  on  a  common  artistic  method,  whether 
inherited  from  their  illustrious  ancestor  or  peculiar  to  them- 
selves ;  nor  is  there  evidence  to  show  that  they  had  any  bond 
of  community  beyond  that  of  their  common  ancestry.  The 
conjectures  that  they  alone  had  the  right  to  produce  their 
ancestor's  plays,  or  (in  the  case  of  the  school  of  .^schylus)  that 
they  were  marked  by  an  adherence  to  the  trilogy,  are  disproved 
by  inscriptions  containing  the  official  didascalise.  These  in- 
scriptions show  that  certainly  in  B.C.  340  three  plays  were  not 
necessarily  produced  at  a  time;  that  when  three  plays  were 
eini  ultaneously  produced,  even  by  a  member  of  the  school  of 
.^schylus,  they  had  not  that  inner  bond  of  connection  distinc- 
tive of  the  trilogy  of  .^schylus ;  and,  finally,  that  old  plays 
were  produced,  not  by  the  school  of  the  author,  but  by  the 
protagonist. 

.^schylus'  son,  Euphorion,  four  times  won  the  prize  with 
tragedies  of  his  father  hitherto  not  produced  on  the  stage.  He 
also  wrote  plays  of   his  own;    but  with  what  success,  or  of 


206  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

what  merit,  we  do  not  know.  The  nephew  of  i3i!schylu3 
Philocles,  although  his  style  was  accused  of  harshness,  must 
have  been  a  tragedian  of  considerable  distinction,  for  he  won 
the  prize  against  Sophocles  when  the  latter  produced  his  CEdipus 
Rex.  Philocles,  amongst  other  plays,  seems  to  have  produced 
a  tetralogy,  the  PandioJiis,  which  appeared  some  time  before  B.C. 
414;  for  it  is  alluded  to  in  the  Birds  of  Aristophanes.  Mor- 
simus,  the  son  of  Philocles,  vests  his  claim  to  mention  less  on 
his  tragedies,  which  were  frigid,  than  on  the  distinction  of  his 
son  and  grandson,  who  both  bore  the  name  of  Astydamas. 
The  elder  Astydamas  was  originally  trained  in  the  school  of 
Socrates,  but  eventually  cultivated  tragedy.  The  importation  of 
rhetoric  into  tragedy,  which  had  been  begun  by  Euripides,  was 
thus  carried  on  by  Astydamas.  His  style,  like  that  of  Euri- 
pides, was  gnomic,  and  his  versification  was  loose.  Some 
confusion  has  been  made  between  Astydamas  the  father  and 
Astydamas  the  son.  It  is  generally  stated  that  the  father  was 
the  more  distinguished  tragedian,  and  that  his  Parthenopceiis 
was  of  such  merit  that  the  Athenians  awarded  him  the  honour, 
hitherto  only  accorded  to  the  three  great  tragedians,  of  a  statue. 
Stone  records,  however,  show  that  it  was  the  younger  Astydamas 
who  brought  out  the  Parthenopceus,  and  it  follows  that  the  son 
was  the  more  successful  poet  of  the  two.  This  is  also  borne 
out  by  the  fact  that,  even  according  to  the  few  inscriptions  at 
present  known,  the  younger  Astydamas  won  the  prize  two  years 
running.  In  b.C.  431  he  brought  out  the  Achillevs,  Atharnas, 
and  Antigone.  The  Alcmceon  mentioned  by  Aristotle  {Poetics^ 
xiv.  15)  is  generally  ascribed  to  the  elder  Astydamas. 


CHAPTEE    lit 

SOPHOCLES. 

Sophocles  was  born  at  Col  onus  about  495  b.o.     His  father, 

Sophillus,  was  a  smith,  that  is  to  say,  he  owned  slaves  who 
worked  as  smiths,  and  from  their  work  he  obtained  his  income, 
as  the  father  of  Demosthenes  gained  his  wealth  by  employing 
a  large  number  of  slaves  to  manufacture  weapons.  The  worship 
at  Colonus  of  Prometheus,  the  Titan  who  gave  to  man  fire, 
Beems  to  indicate  that  the  art  of  working  metals  had  been  esta- 
blished for  some  time  in  the  deme,  and  the  "brazen  threshold," 


THE  drama:    SOPHOCLES.  207 

if  the  words  of  Sophocles^  are  to  be  taken  literally,  would 
point  to  the  existence  there  of  a  guild  of  metal-workers.  The 
beauty  of  his  birthplace  is  celebrated  by  Sophocles  in  the 
famous  ode  of  the  CEdipus  Colone7is,^  and  we  may  see  traces  of 
the  early  associations  of  Sophocles  in  the  chorus  of  smiths 
brought  into  his  lost  play  Pandora,  and  in  the  introduction  in 
another  play  of  Kedalion,  the  gnome  who  taught  Hephaestus 
smithying.^  Sophillus'  wealth  was  sufficiently  great  to  give 
Sophocles  the  best  of  educations,  and  to  place  him  in  a  good 
position  in  Athenian  society.  He  was  chosen  (b.c.  480)  to  lead 
the  chorus  of  boys  who  sang  the  Paean  in  honour  of  the  victory 
at  Salamis.  The  first  occasion  on  which,  to  our  knowledge,  he 
won  a  tragic  prize  was  in  B.C.  468.  For  the  date  and  the  fact 
that  he  won  the  prize  we  have  the  authority  of  a  stone  record.* 
The  other  particulars  supposed  to  be  connected  with  this  event 
— that  Cimon  had  just  returned  from  his  expedition  to  Scyrus, 
and  that  the  Archou  Apsephion,  in  consequence  of  the  height 
to  which  feeling  ran  among  the  spectators,  made  Cimon  and  his 
colleagues  award  the  prize  instead  of  the  proper  judges — rest 
only  on  the  authority  of  Plutarch.^  Lessing  has  conjectured 
that  the  victorious  play  was  the  Triptolemus.^  As  to  the  plays 
produced  by  Sophocles  between  b.c.  468  and  B.C.  440,  we  have 
not  even  conjectures.  This,  the  first,  period  of  Sophocles' 
dramatic  development  is,  as  far  as  his  literary  activity  is  con- 
cerned, an  entire  blank  for  us.  "We  know,  besides,  on  the 
authority  of  an  inscription,  that  he  was  on  the  board  of  trea- 
surers who  managed  the  tribute  paid  to  Athens  by  her  allies, 
in  the  year  B.c.  4423''^  but  that  is  all.  In  b.c.  440  he  was 
elected  strategus  or  general,  and  the  production  of  the  Antigone 
is  generally  associated  with  this  event. ^  It  fell  to  his  lot  to 
assist  as  strategus  with  Pericles  in  conducting  the  naval  war 
against  Samos.  His  duties  took  him  to  Lesbos  among  other 
places,  and  fortunately  we  have  an  account  of  his  proceedings, 
written  by  some  one  who  met  him  there.     Ion,  the  tragedian, 

»  CE.  C.  57  :  xa^'coTTous  656s.  »  lb.  668. 

*  Fragments  724  and  734  (Dind.)  point  to  the  same  fact, 

*  C.  I.  G.  2374. 

*  And  are  exceedingly  improbable,  (i)  Cimon  went  to  Scyrus  in  B.C.  476. 
Sophocles  won  the  prize  in  B.C.  468.  (2)  If  this  was  Sophocles'  first  contest, 
how  could  the  spectators'  feelings  be  so  excited  about  an  unknown  compe- 
titor?   (3)  The  Archon  had  no  power  to  reject  the  legally  appointed  judges, 

*  But  it  is  only  a  doubtful  conjecture  from  Plin.  N.  H.  xviii.  65. 
'  C.  I.  A.  i.  237:  2o(^ok\^s  l^oXiiJvfidev  EXXTji/ora^i/as  ^v. 

*  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium,  who  would  be  an  authority,  does  not 
guarantee  the  statement,  in  the  Argument  to  the  Antigone,  that  Sophocles' 
election  was  due  to  the  Ardigone.  The  statement  is  puerile.  The  tragio 
prize,  not  naval  or  military  command,  was  awarded  to  a  victorious  poet. 


208  HISTORY  OF  GREF:K  LITERATimE. 

in  his  EpidemicB  ^  (a  record  of  the  visits  of  celehrated  men  to 
Chios)  says : — "  I  met  the  poet  Sophocles  in  Chios  at  the  time 
M'hen  he  came  as  strategus  to  Lesbos.  He  is  a  playful  man 
over  his  wine  and  witty.  He  was  entertained  by  the  Athenian 
consul,  Hermesilaus,  a  friend  of  his.  In  the  course  of  conver- 
sation, Sophocles  happened  to  quote  the  line  of  Phrynichus, 
'  In  purple  cheeks  there  shines  the  light  of  love.'  Whereupon 
a  schoolmaster  from  Eretria  or  Erythrae  remarked,  '  You  are  a 
great  poet,  Sophocles,  but,  for  all  that,  it  was  inaccurate  of 
Phrynichus  to  speak  of  purple  cheeks.  If  an  artist  were  to  put 
purple  cheeks  in  a  picture,  they  would  not  look  beautiful.  It 
is  utterly  wrong  to  compare  what  is  beautiful  to  something 
which  is  not.'  Sophocles  replied  with  a  laugh,  '  Then,  sir,  in 
opposition  to  universal  opinion,  you  do  not  approve  of  Simonides' 
line,  "  A  maid  who  speaks  with  purple  lips,"  nor  of  the  poet 
who  speaks  of  golden-haired  Apollo  1  for  if  a  painter  made  the 
god's  hair  gold  and  not  black,  the  painting  would  be  a  bad  one. 
Nor  of  the  poet  who  talks  of  rosy-fingered  Dawn  1  for  an  artist 
who  used  paint  of  a  rose-colour  would  give  her  the  hands  of  a 
dyer,  not  of  a  pretty  woman  V"  A  roar  of  laughter  extinguished 
the  schoolmaster,  and  Ion  goes  on  to  say  that  Sophocles,  having 
cheated  a  pretty  child  into  giving  him  a  kiss,  explained  to  the 
company,  "Pericles  says  I  am  a  poet,  not  a  general;  so  I  am 
practising  generalship.  Do  not  you  think  my  stratagem  suc- 
ceeded very  welH"  Ion  adds,  "Public  business  he  did  not 
know  or  care  much  about,  except  as  befitted  a  decent  Athenian." 
The  story  is  equally  creditable  to  the  discernment  of  Pericles 
and  the  good  temper  of  Sophocles.  Pericles,  moreover,  seems 
to  have  acted  on  his  opinion.  Being  the  chief  strategus,  Peri- 
cles directed  the  movements  of  the  other  generals,  and  accord- 
ingly, so  far  as  possible,  engaged  Sophocles  with  fetching  up 
reinforcements  and  such  work.  In  fact,  it  was  because  he  was 
sent  to  Lesbos  for  reinforcements  and  supplies  that  Sophocles 
got  an  opportunity  for  the  stratagem  which  Ion  describes.  It 
was  the  most  successful  stratagem  of  the  war,  so  far  as  Sopho- 
cles was  concerned,  for  when  Pericles  had  to  leave  him  to  con- 
duct the  siege  of  Samos,  he  at  once  contrived  to  get  defeated. 
Few  other  facts  are  known  with  regard  to  his  life.  Whether 
the  Sophocles  whom  Aristotle  mentions  ^  as  having  been  one  of 
the  ten  Probuli  who  consented  to  establish  the  tyranny  of  the 
Four  Hundred  in  b.c.  413  is  the  poet  is  uncertain.  The  story  of 
his  being  accused  by  his  son  lophon  of  madness,  and  of  his 
vindicating  his  sanity  by  reading  the  (Edipus,  is  full  of  difl&- 
^  Athenaeua,  xiii.  604s.  ^  Rhet.  iii.  18.  6. 


THE  DRAMA  :    SOPHOCLES.  209 

culties.^  Sophocles  died  about  B.C.  405,  and  there  are  various 
supernatural  stories  as  to  the  manner  of  his  death.^ 

Before  proceeding  to  consider  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles,  we 
may  say  that  the  supposition  as  to  Herodotus  and  Sophocles 
having  been  acquainted  is  extremely  probable.  There  are  simi- 
larities in  certain  passages  of  the  two  authors,^  though  too 
much  weight  must  not  be  assigned  to  these  similarities.  "We 
have  the  beginning  of  an  elegy  by  Sophocles  dedicated  to  Hero- 
dotus,^ and  Herodotus  spent  so  much  time  in  Athens  that  it  is 
almost  impossible  that  he  should  not  have  met  Sophocles.  It 
has  been  imagined  that  there  are  in  Herodotus'  history  traces 
of  views  and  information  which  would  naturally  come  only 
from  Pericles  ;  but  at  any  rate,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  imagine 
that  Herodotus  may  have  met  Sophocles  at  the  house  of  Peri- 
cles. Wherever  they  met,  they  would  sympathise.  Their  way 
of  looking  at  the  world,  their  views  of  Fate  and  Nemesis,  were 
the  same. 

By  bringing  down  philosophy  from  the  skies  to  the  earth, 
Socrates  gave  a  new  direction  to  philosophy,  which  philosophy 

^  It  is  not  impossible  that  the  story  is  based  on  a  misunderstanding  of  a 
scene  in  some  comedy  in  •which  Sophocles  and  lophon  may  have  been  made 
fun  of.  At  any  rate,  a  charge  of  madness  could  not  have  been  brought  before 
the  Phratores,  as  the  story  has  it,  for  such  cases  were  brought  before  the 
Archon  only.     Lex.  SeiJ.  199.  10,  and  Poll.  viii.  89. 

2  The  story  that  he  was  choked  by  a  grape  originates  in  a  stupid  misun- 
derstanding of  the  younger  Simouides'  epigram  (Anth.  Pal.  vii.  20) — 

^Eff^effdrjs,  yrjpaik  2o06/tXeey,  S,v6os  aoiduv, 
Olvuirbv  Bd/cxov  ^orpvv  ipeTrrd/jLevos. 

These  lines,  which  mean  that  Sophocles  died  whilst  engaged  on  a  tragedy, 
which,  being  a  tragedy,  was  dedicated  to  Bacchus,  were  taken  literally. 

'  E.g.  the  dream  of  Clytemestra,  El.  417,  and  of  Astyages,  Hdt.  i.  108, 
the  reference  in  Track.  1  to  Solon's  maxim,  the  legend  of  the  oracle  of 
Dodona,  Hdt.  ii.  55,  followed  in  the  Trachinice.  the  customs  of  the  Scyths  in 
Fr.  429  and  Hdt.  iv.  64,  the  descrii)tion  of  the  Egyptians  in  O.  C.  337.  The 
passage  in  Antig.  905-915  is  almost  identical  with  Hdt.  3.  119.  In  both 
cases  the  argument  is  that  a  sister,  when  her  parents  are  dead,  is  bound  to 
■aorifice  everything  to  her  brother,  because  he  cannot  be  replaced.  As  to 
the  Antigune,  however,  it  has  been  said  that  this  argument  is  inconsistent, 
sophistical,  ignoble,  and  misplaced.  From  this  some  have  inferred  that 
Sophocles  has  bori'owed  from  Herodotus,  or  that  the  passage  in  the  Antigone 
is  spurious.  0«  the  other  hand,  it  is  said  that  Sophocles  shows  his  truth  to 
nature  in  making  Antigone's  feelings  before  and  after  her  deed  different,  and 
that  the  argument  is  not  sophistical  or  misplaced,  but  primitive,  and  appro- 
priate in  Greek,  though  not  in  modern  times. 

*  Plut.  Mor.  785B:— 

<fS^v  'E.poS6T(f  rev^eif  So^okX^j  iriwv  £l)i>  irivr*  hrl  vevr-fiKovTa, 

If  this  could  be  relied  on,  and  the  date  of  Sophocles'  strategia  were  cer* 
tainly  B.C.  440 — and  both  points  are  uncertain — this  would  show  that 
Sophocles  probably  met  Herodotus  at  Samoa. 


f  lO  HISTORY  OF  GREKK  LITERATUKB, 

Bas  retained  to  this  day.  In  a  different  sense,  Sopliocles  brought 
down  the  drama  from  the  skies  to  the  earth,  and  the  drama 
still  follows  the  course  which  Sophocles  first  marked  out  for  it. 
It  was  on  the  gods,  the  struggles  of  the  gods,  and  on  destiny 
that  ^schylus  dwelt;  it  is  with  man  that  Sophocles  is  con- 
cerned. From  this  diflFerence  flow  all  the  differences  between 
the  two  poets,  and  herein  consists  the  advance  which  Sophoclea 
made  in  the  development  of  the  drama.  Such  action  as  the 
plays  of  ^schylus  possess  they  derive  from  the  force  of  destiny. 
What  is  done  by  a  character  in  the  -^schylean  drama  is,  it  i8 
true,  consistent  with  that  character.  The  murder  of  Agamem- 
non could  be  expected  from  Clytemestra  alone.  But  although 
she  is  suited  to  the  deed  and  the  deed  to  her,  if  we  ask 
why  she  murdered  Agamemnon,  we  shall  find  that  the  reason 
lies,  not  in  her  character  nor  in  her  circumstances  but,  in 
her  destiny.  This  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that 
one  critic  attributes  her  act  to  wounded  maternal  feelings, 
another  to  her  adultery,  and  each  critic  rejects  the  reason 
alleged  by  the  other ;  whereas  Clytemestra  herself  says  it  was 
not  she  who  killed  Agamemnon,  but  the  evil  "  destiny  of  the 
Atridae "  taking  her  form.  In  Sophocles,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  motive  force  of  the  drama  is  always  to  be  found  in  the 
passions  of  men,  and  not  in  the  external  action  of  destiny. 
The  Ajax  of  Sophocles  commits  suicide,  not  because  he  is  fated 
to  do  so,  but  because  to  him,  after  his  disgrace,  life  is  not 
merely  distasteful,  but  impossible.  The  force  at  work  here  is 
internal,  and  consists  in  the  feelings  of  Ajax.  On  the  contrary, 
the  Orestes  of  iEschylus  has  no  proper  motion  of  his  own.  He 
is  simply  the  channel  through  which  the  action  of  the  gods 
flows.  What  he  does  is  not  his  own  doing,  but  what  Apollo 
bids.  The  force  is  from  without,  not  from  within.  Contrast 
this  with  Sophocles.  Every  action  of  (Edipus  is  the  natural 
necessary  outcome  of  his  character  and  his  circumstances,  and 
when  peace  does  come  to  him,  it  is  from  within  ;  whereas,  in 
the  case  of  Orestes,  there  is  a  purely  external  conflict  between 
Apollo  and  the  Erinyes,  and  Orestes'  absolution  comes  not  from 
within,  but  from  without.  In  .^schylus  we  have  symbolism, 
in  Sophocles  poetic  truth. 

'  Although,  in  Sophocles,  the  mainspring  of  man's  actions  is 
men's  passions,  we  still  find  fatalism  in  Sophocles,  but  not  the 
fatalism  of  .^schylus.  With  ^^schylus,  Atreus  commits  a 
crime,  and  the  punishment  falls  upon  his  children  for  genera- 
tions in  the  shape  of  a  destiny  compelling  them  to  crimes. 
With  Sophocles,  the  house  of  the  Labdacidae  is  indeed  under  9 


THE  DRAMA:    SOrHOCLES.  211 

Bimilar  curse,  but  tlie  cause  of  CEdipus'  deeds  is  not  destiny,  but 
circumstances  and  himself.  The  fatalism  of  Sophocles  is  that 
of  Herodotus,  and  probably  of  the  ordinary  Greek  of  the  time. 
It  may  be  illustrated  from  Herodotus.  According  to  the  his- 
torian, Croesus,  the  father  of  Atys,  learning  from  an  oracle  that 
his  son  was  destined  to  perish  by  an  iron  weapon,  confined  him 
to  the  house  with  the  purpose  of  evading  the  doom  foretold  by 
the  oracle.  The  son,  however,  persuaded  Crcesus  to  allow  him 
to  go  to  the  chase,  and  then  was  accidentally  killed  by  the  very 
person  to  whose  care  Croesus,  in  his  dread  of  the  oracle,  had 
intrusted  him.  This  is  the  worst  kind  of  fatalism,  for  it  teaches 
that  man  cannot  avoid  his  fate,  whatever  he  may  do,  and  thus 
encourages  helpless  and  indolent  resignation  to  an  imaginary 
necessitj'.i  This  was  the  fatalism  which  Sophocles  found  and 
accepted.  But  if  he  adopted  this  and  other  common  beliefs, 
he,  as  a  poet,  by  adopting  them  elevated  and  refined  them. 

It  is  probably  impossible  to  discuss  Sophocles'  attitude  to- 
wards fatalism  without  reading  into  him  at  least  some  ideas 
which  could  not  be  present  to  the  mind  of  any  Greek.  It  is 
difficult  to  always  realise  that  Sophocles  knew  nothing  of  the 
free-will  controversy,  and  consequently  felt  no  alarm  at  fatalism. 
Remembering,  however,  this  fact, '  we  shall  not  consider  it  a 
paradox  to  say  that  Sophocles  shows  how  men  run  on  their  fate 
of  their  own  free-wilL  CEdipus  is  warned  by  Apollo  of  his 
doom,  and  he  fulfils  his  doom  ;  but  all  his  acts  are  his  own ; 
neither  man  nor  God  can  be  blamed.  The  lesson  as  well  as  the 
art  of  Sophocles  is  that  man's  fate,  though  determined  by  the 
gods,  depends  on  his  actions,  and  his  actions  on  himself  and  his 
circumstances.  The  contradiction  which  to  us  is  involved  in 
this  did  not  exist  for  Sophocles.  If  Sophocles  did  not  find 
out  any  incompatibility  between  free-will  and  fatalism,  neither 
did  he  see  in  fatalism  any  imputation  on  the  justice  of  the  gods. 
Indeed,  the  contrary  is  the  case.  The  action  of  the  gods  in 
foretelling  to  Qlldipus  and  to  Atys  their  fate  is  open  to  a  double 
construction.  It  is  possible  to  regard  it  as  mere  cruel  deception 
(for  the  parents  of  whom  CEdipus  was  told  were  not  the  parents 
that  he  supposed  to  be  meant,  nor  was  the  weapon  that  actually 
proved  fatal  the  weapon  which  Atys  supposed).  But  if  this 
view  of  the  gods  was  held  by  others,  it  was  not  the  view  of 
Sophocles.  In  him  we  find  no  complaint  of  the  injustice  of 
the  gods.  On  the  contrary,  the  gods  warn  man,  and  yet  man 
does  what  they  have  tried  to  save  him  from.     The  heavens 

^  Antigone,  236.  Cf.  .Ssch.  S.  e.  Th.  263.  Plato  {Gorg.  512K)  calls  it  • 
woman's  creed. 


812  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

speak  to  man,  but  he  understands  them  not.  If  Oedipus  is  not 
to  be  blamed,  neither  certainly  are  the  gods.  For  Sophocles, 
fatalism  was  consistent  both  with  free  will  and  with  the  justice 
of  the  gods ;  on  neither  subject  had  he  any  doubts  to  solve. 
Nor  does  his  tragedy  concern  itself  to  give  an  answer  to  the 
question,  why  do  the  innocent  suffer  ?  The  innocent  do  staffer, 
and  that  fact  is  the  tragedy  of  life.  His  plays  are  not  works  of 
theology ;  their  object  is  not  to  solve  problems.  The  sufferings 
of  the  innocent  cause  pity  and  fear,  and  thus  serve  in  tragedy 
to  redeem  the  crudity  of  fatalism.  When  Deianira  in  her  love 
for  her  husband  innocently  causes  his  death,  we  feel  the  pity 
which  it  is  the  part  of  tragedy  to  excite ;  and  when  we  read  of 
CEdipus  and  his  undeserved  sufferings,  we  feel  so  much  fear  as 
is  implied  in  obeying  the  utterance  "Judge  not." 

In  this  connection  we  may  consider  the  ''irony  of  Sophocles." 
In  argument  irony  has  many  forms.  That  which  best  illus- 
trates the  irony  of  Sophocles  is  the  method  by  which  the 
ironical  man,  putting  apparently  innocent  questions  or  sugges- 
tions, leads  some  person  from  one  preposterous  statement  to 
another,  until,  perhaps,  the  subject  of  the  irony  realises  his 
situation  and  discovers  that  when  he  thought  he  was  most 
brilliant  or  impressive,  then  he  was  really  most  absurd.  There 
are,  or  may  be,  three  persons  who  assist  at  an  ironical  argu- 
ment— the  ironical  man,  the  subject,  and  the  spectator ;  and 
they  appreciate  the  irony  at  different  times,  the  subject  retro- 
spectively, the  ironical  man  prospectively,  and  the  spectator 
contemporaneously.  Their  feelings  will  vary  according  to  cir- 
cumstances. The  spectator  may  sympathise  with  the  ironical 
man  or  with  the  victim,  and  his  feelings  will  be  accordingly 
those  of  enjoyment  or  of  compassion.  What  the  ironical  man 
feels  will  depend  largely  on  his  motive.  He  may  feel  amuse- 
ment simply  or  triumph,  or  his  object  may  be  that  of  Socrates, 
whose  irony  was  intended  to  rouse  men  to  a  sense  of  their 
ignorance  and  to  a  real  desire  for  knowledge.  In  the  case  of 
Socrafe3,  successful  irony  must  have  been  accompanied  by  the 
consciousness  of  having  rendered  a  service  to  philosophy,  to 
the  person  with  whom  he  conversed,  and  to  thoee  who  listened. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  see  how  the  term  irony  may 
be  extended  from  its  use  as  applied  to  argument,  and  be  also 
applied  to  human  action.  When  CEdipus  was  told  by  Apollo 
that  he  would  kill  his  father  and  commit  incest  with  his 
mother,  he  at  once  fled  from  his  home  at  Corinth,  and  found 
his  way  to  Thebes.  There  he  married  the  queen,  became  king, 
was   blest   with   children   and   a   glorious   reign.     When   the 


THE  DRAMA  :    SOPHOCLES.  213 

revelation  comes,  he  looks  back  upon  his  life  only  to  see  that 
the  flight  from  Corinth,  which  was  to  take  him  far  from  hia 
parents,  led  him  to  meet  and  kill  his  father  and  to  wed  his 
mother ;  that  the  children  in  whom  he  thought  himself  blest 
are  the  fruit  of  incest,  and  that  the  glory  of  his  reign  was  a 
revolting  horror.  But  if  his  glance  was  retrospective,  that  of 
the  gods  was  prospective.  His  feelings  are  such  as  no  one 
can  help  him  to  bear  the  burden  of :  ^  what  are  those  of  the 
gods  t  That  is  a  question  to  which  Sophocles  never  gives  an 
answer.  Perhaps  he  thought  it  inscrutable.  But  as  there  la 
a  third  party  to  the  irony  of  argument,  so  there  is  to  the  irony 
of  life,  that  is,  the  spectator.  His  feelings  are  not  inscrutable. 
Pity  he  will  feel,  and  if  the  irony  of  Socrates  could  teach  the 
bystander  a  lesson  against  intellectual  pride,  the  irony  of  Sopho- 
cles may  teach  the  spectator  a  lesson  against  moral  pride. 

For  the  full  appreciation  of  the  irony  of  Sophocles,  and  of 
its  artistic  value  in  heightening  the  interest  of  the  drama, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  whereas  the  torturing  contrast 
between  the  condition  of  G£dipus,  as  he  fancies  it,  and  as  it 
really  is,  is  only  discovered  by  CEdipus  at  the  last  moment, 
this  contrast  is  perpetually  present  from  the  beginning  to  the 
spectator.  The  artistic  value  of  this  is  double.  In  the  first 
place,  the  spectator  having  known  the  real  state  of  things  from 
the  first,  has  all  along  been  in  the  state  of  mind  in  which 
CEdipus  finds  himself  when  the  revelation  has  come ;  and  the 
consequence  is  that  the  spectator  needs  no  explanation  from 
CEdipus  of  his  state  of  mind,  but  comprehends  and  sympathises 
at  once  with  CEdipus  when  he  blinds  himself.  Thus  the 
action  of  the  drama  is  enabled  to  proceed  with  a  directness  and 
rapidity  which  would  be  impossible  if  CEdipus  had  to  explain 
the  motives  of  his  self-mutilation.  In  the  second  place,  the 
contrast  between  CEdipus"  fancied  height  of  glory  and  his  really 
piteous  position  is  present  to  the  mind  of  the  spectator  through- 
out. Thus  every  word  in  the  drama  has  a  doubled  effect  upon 
the  feelings. 

The  drama  owes  its  origin  to  religion  and  its  development 
to  art.  It  is  but  another  way  of  stating  this  fact  to  say  that 
one  sign  of  the  growth  of  the  Greek  drama  was  the  diminution 
of  its  religious  significance.  This  is  partly  illustrated  by  the 
diminishing  importance  of  the  chorus.  It  is  also  illustrated  in 
that  displacement  of  destiny  by  character  as  the  motive  force. 

The  characters  of  Sophocles  are  bound  up  with  his  plots  in 
each  an  artistic  and  harmonious  whole,  that  to  attempt  to  con* 
1  O.  T.  1414. 


214  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

sider  his  characters  apart  is  an  unsatisfactory  proceeding  Hii 
plots  depend  upon  his  characters,  for  the  plot  of  a  play  consists 
of  the  actions  of  the  dramatis  persona?,  and  it  is  part  of  the 
excellence  of  Sophocles  that  the  actions  of  his  dramatis  personce 
are  motived,  not  by  stage  necessity  or  by  an  external  destiny, 
but  by  the  character  ascribed  to  them.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
is  equally  true  that  his  characters  depend  upon  his  plots.  The 
frequent  revolutions  and  the  catastrophes  of  the  Sophoclean 
drama  do  not  by  themselves  constitute  the  interest  of  the  play, 
as  neither  does  the  painting  of  character  constitute  the  whole 
or  the  most  important  part  of  his  tragedies.  The  plot  has  its 
intrinsic  interest,  but  it  also  develops  the  characters.  For  in- 
stance, unless  Electra  were  deceived  into  believing  that  Orestes 
was  dead,  the  spectator  would  witness  neither  her  despair,  nor 
the  bold  resolve  which  that  despair  serves  only  to  create.  If 
Philoctetes  were  not  first  exalted  to  hope  and  then  reduced  to 
helplessness,  his  pertinacity  in  abiding  by  his  resolution  would 
not  be  brought  into  relief.  Sophocles  shows  us  not  only  the 
action  and  outward  bearing  of  a  King  (Edipus,  but  also  the 
inner  struggles  of  feeling  which  result  in  action  and  outward 
bearing.  The  spectator  of  the  Agamemnon  knows  little  more  of 
Clytemestra's  character  than  does  the  chorus,  or  perhaps  it  is 
that  there  is  little  more  to  know.  The  spectator  of  the  Ajax, 
on  the  contrary,  knows  of  Ajax'  inward  struggles  what  no  other 
character  but  Ajax  knows. 

The  criticism^  that  Euripides  drew  men  as  they  are,  Sophocles 
as  he  ought,  must  not  be  understood  to  mean  that  Euripides 
drew  them  with  greater  truth.  Euripides'  characters  have  not 
unfrequently  that  worst  of  faults,  faultlessness;  whereas  Sophocles 
never  makes  that  mistake.  CEdipus  is  proud  and  hasty  ;  Electra 
is  hard  ;  Neoptolemus  consents  to  practise  a  deception  against 
which  his  better  feelings  protest ;  Antigone,  when  the  moment 
of  action  is  over,  becomes  a  thorough  woman.  Finally,  the 
truth  with  which  Sophocles  makes  Antigone  and  Ajax  regret 
the  life  they  are  about  to  lose  is  apt  to  escape  modern  notice. 
Christianity  has  so  familiarised  us  with  man's  immortality  that 
■we  forget  he  is  also  mortal.  But  no  Greek  writer  forgot  it, 
least  of  all  did  Sophocles,  and  to  this  unforgetfulness  we  owe 
passages  in  Sophocles  of  the  greatest  beauty. 

If  we  now  proceed  to  examine  the  position  and  functions  of 
the  chorus  in  the  Sophoclean  drama,  we  shall  find  its  func- 
tions much  the  same  as  in  ^schylus,  but  its  position  much  less 
prominent.  There  are  choral  odes  in  Sophocles  as  in  iEsjhylus, 
1  Aristotle,  Poetics,  25,  gives  it  as  Sophocles'  own  criticism. 


THE  DRAMA  :    SOPHOCLES.  2  I  5 

but  they  are  much  shorter.  The  chorus  takes  a  part  in  the 
action  of  tlie  play,  but  it  is  unimportant.  In  ^schylus  the 
cliorus  is  sometimes,  e.g.  in  the  Persae  or  the  Eumenides,  the 
chief  character  of  the  play.  In  Sophocles  the  chorus  is,  aa 
it  were,  enclitic  ;  it  always  depends  on  one  of  the  principal 
characters,^  in  sympathy  with  whom  it  grieves  ^  or  rejoices  ^  or 
prays  to  the  gods.*  In  harmony  with  these  duties,  the  chorus 
always  consists  of  free  people  (not  of  slaves,  as  in  the  Choephori 
of  ^schylus),  either  in  a  humble  position,  as  the  sailors  in  the 
Philodetes  and  the  Ajax,  or  of  an  age  or  sex  from  which  action 
would  not  be  expected,  e.g.  the  old  men  of  the  King  CEdipus, 
the  CEdipus  at  Colonus,  and  the  Antigone,  or  the  young  maidens 
of  the  Tracliinice.  The  chorus  in  Sophocles,  as  in  iEschylus,  is 
invested  with  a  definite  and  individual  character.^  It  is  not  an 
impersonal  entity  ;  it  is  not  intended  to  represent  the  poet's 
view  of  an  impartial  spectator,  nor  is  it  the  means  of  conveying 
Sophocles'  speculations  on  moral  and  religious  questions.  The 
lyrical  odes  occur  at  the  points  wliere  there  is  necessarily  or 
naturally  a  pause  in  the  action  of  the  drama,  and  they  review 
what  has  happened  and  resume  the  situation.^ 

The  subordinate  position  which  the  chorus  is  made  in  all  re- 
spects to  take  in  the  Sophoclean  drama  must  be  connected 
with  the  fact  that  Sophocles  raised  the  number  of  actors  '^  from 
two  to  three.  At  first  sight,  this  latter  change  looks  as  though 
it  gave  to  Sophocles  one  actor  more  than  ^schylus  had.  But 
it  must  be  remembered  that  what  Sophocles  gained  by  the  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  his  actors,  he  partially  surrendered  by 
the  restrictions  he  placed  upon  the  action  of  the  chorus.  In 
iEschylus  the  chorus  was  not  unfrequently  the  leading  character 
of  the  piece.     In  Sophocles  the  chorus  has  no  such  position. 

J  Mostly  on  the  hero  or  heroine,  but  sometimes,  as  in  the  Philoctetes  or  in 
the  Antigone,  on  the  character  opposed  to  the  hero  or  heroine. 

2  E.g.  Aj.  139-141,  165-167  ;  El.  121-123,  130,  137  et  seq.,  153  et  seq.,  173 
tt  seq.  ;  Track.  103,  123  et  seq.,  136  et  seq. 

^  E.g.  Ant.  100-154. 

*  E.g.  O.  T.  151,  187,  202,  204,  206 ;  Track.  94  ;  El.  162,  173. 

'  See  Aj.  165,  229,  245,  866,  925,  1185-1223  ;  Pkiloc-  169,  708-718,  721, 
836,  855,  963-965,  1071,  1469.  O.  G.  669-720,  829  et  seq.,  1054  et  seq.,  1211 
et  seq. 

®  E.g.  in  the  0.  T.,  when  CEdipus  has  announced  that  he  is  expecting 
Creon's  return,  there  is  naturally  a  pause,  aud  the  chorus  describe  the  situa- 
tion, that  is,  the  plague.  After  the  scene  with  Teiresias,  in  which  CEdipus 
is  himself  accused  of  being  the  cause  of  the  plague,  Creon  is  expected  to 
come  and  defend  himself  from  CEdipus'  charge  of  collusion  with  Teiresias. 
The  interval  of  waiting  is  filled  up  by  an  ode,  expressing  the  doubt  as  to  who 
is  the  guilty  man  ;  and  so  on. 

'  As  ^schylus  employs  three  actors  in  the  Oresteia,  this  rauovation  miutt 
have  been  made  by  Sophocles  before  B.C.  460. 


2  1 6  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

The  real  change  effected  by  Sophocles  was  not  that  h?  intra 
duced  a  greater  number  of  interlocutors,  but  that  he  transferred 
the  burden  of  the  piece  almost  entirely  to  the  actors.  At  the 
same  time  that  he  practically  excluded  the  chorus  from  the 
development  of  the  action  of  the  play,  he  developed  the  func- 
tions of  the  chorus  in  the  sphere  to  which  it  was  now  confined. 
He  raised  the  number  of  the  choreutse  from  twelve  to  fifteen, 
and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that,  as  a  consequence  of  thia 
change,  he  introduced  the  Tritostates  by  the  side  of  the  Para- 
states  and  Coryphaeus.  So  long  as  the  chorus  numbered  only 
twelve,  the  movements  of  the  Coryphgeus  were  to  a  certain  extent 
limited.  For  instance,  when  it  was  necessary  for  the  chorus  to 
divide  into  two  Hemichoria,  the  Coryph^us  was  bound  to  range 
himself  with  one  of  the  Hemichoria,  and  so  far  for  the  time 
abdicate  his  position  as  leader  of  the  whole  chorus.  "When, 
however,  the  chorus  numbered  fifteen,  it  might  divide  into  two 
Hemichoria  of  seven  choreutse  each.  Then  the  two  Hemichoria 
would  be  under  the  command  of  the  Parastates  and  the  Tritos- 
tates, while  the  Coryphaeus  would  be  at  liberty  to  attend  wholly 
to  those  parts  of  the  dialogue  in  which  he  had  a  share,  and  to 
leave  the  evolution  of  the  chorus  to  the  care  of  his  two  subordi- 
nate officers,  the  Parastates  and  the  Tritostates. 

The  style,  like  the  character-drawing,  of  Sophocles  bears  a 
closer  relation  to  life  than  does  that  of  ^lEschylus.  The  work 
of  each  poet  has  beauty  and  truth,  but  the  means  by  which 
they  obtain  the  same  end  are  different.  The  structure  of  the 
.^schylean  sentence  resembles  that  of  Cyclopean  masonry.  It 
consists  of  huge  words  roughly  thrown  together.  The  con- 
struction of  Sophocles'  sentences  resembles  that  of  his  plays. 
Under  an  appearance  of  simplicity  is  concealed  an  amount  of 
thought  almost  inexhaustible.  In  this  respect,  and  in  the 
ductility  of  his  sentence,  Sophocles  may  be  compared  with 
Thucydides.  Though  the  words  of  Sophocles  have  become 
simpler,  his  syntax  is  more  complex  than  that  of  .^schylus. 
The  hearer  may  be  set  thinking  by  Sophocles'  expressions,  but 
he  is  not  startled  by  them.  The  harmony  with  which  Sophocles 
combines  the  most  various  elements  of  the  drama  is  equally 
characteristic  of  his  style.  He  borrows  words  from  .^schylus  ; 
he  invents  words  of  his  own ;  he  naturally,  from  the  study  of 
the  founders  of  iambic  verse,  brings  away  Ionic  words  ;  and  on 
him,  as  on  ^schylus,  the  study  of  Homer  has  its  efiect.  Yet 
the  whole  is  marked  by  a  predominant  Attic  colouring,  and  by 
•  sweetness  which  is  distinctive  of  Sophocles. 

Of  lost  plays  of  Sophocles  we  have  fragments  and  the  titlea 


THE  DRAMA  :    SOPHOCLES.  21/ 

of  about  one  hundred.  Of  these,  nearly  one-fourth  apparently 
drew  their  subjects  from  the  tale  of  Troy ;  and  it  is  signifi- 
cant, both  for  the  temper  of  the  time  and  for  Sophocles'  tendency 
to  psychological  analysis,  that  Odysseus  frequently  appeared  in 
these  plays.  Of  the  character  of  Odysseus  as  conceived  by 
Sophocles  we  can  fortunately  form  an  idea  from  the  sketch  in 
the  surviving  play,  PMlodetes.  Several  of  the  lost  plays  were 
on  subjects  also  treated  of  by  Euripides,  e.g.  the  Women  of 
Colchis,  the  Sajths,  and  the  Rhizotomi  (or  Witches),  which  all 
dealt  with  the  tale  of  Medea ;  and  the  Phcedra,  Iphigenia, 
Alcmeon,  and  Alexander.  Some  of  the  lost  plays,  such  as  the 
Triptolemus,  Oreifhuia,  Niohe,  and  Thamyras,  may  have  treated 
of  their  subjects  in  the  ^schylean  way,  and  may  thus  belong 
to  the  first  period  of  Sophocles'  style,  while  he  was  yet  under 
the  influence  of  ^schylus.^  Finally,  we  may  notice  the  names 
of  a  considerable  number  of  satyric  dramas,  such  as  the  Kedalion 
(a  gnome  whose  story,  as  we  have  said  above,  was  connected 
with  Colonus),  Pandora,  Momus,  Ichneutoe,  Heracles  at  Taena- 
ruvi,  Amycus,  Helenas  Wedding,  Amphiareos,  Syndeijmi,  Dio- 
nysiacus,  &c. 

Among  the  fragments  which  are  too  long  to  quote,  we  may 
refer  to  two  beautiful  descriptions  of  love ;  ^  two  passages,  one 
on  the  changes,  the  other  on  the  injustice,  of  fortune ;  ^  two 
others  on  money  and  poverty ;  *  another  on  the  discoveries  of 
Palamedes ;  ^  and  finally,  a  tender,  graceful,  and  sympathetic 
description  of  the  hard  lot  of  women,^  conceived  in  the  spirit 
of  the  TracJmiice.  To  the  latter  we  may  add  the  metaphor, 
quoted  from  the  Phcedra,  by  which  Sophocles  speaks  of  children 
as  the  ancliors  of  a  mother's  life ;  "^  and  contrast  a  line  from  the 
Acrisius  embodying  the  current  view  that  silence  is  a  woman's 
ornament,  s  Among  the  shorter  fragments,  the  most  interesting 
are  those  in  which  the  psychological  penetration  of  Sophocles 
is  to  be  seen,  as  when  in  the  Creusa  he  says  that  a  lost  oppor- 
tunity and  an  injury  inflicted  on  one  by  oneself  are  the  most 

1  Plutarch  baa  preserved  some  remarks  made  by  Sophocles  on  his  owa 
development  aa  an  artist,  which,  although  somewhat  diflScult  to  interpret  as 
given  by  Plutarch,  still  convey  some  information  which  we  should  otherwise 
not  possess.  Sophocles  distinguished  three  stages  in  his  own  development. 
First  Sophocles  was  influenced  by  the  magnificence  of  ^schylus'  style  ;  then 
he  began  ridding  himself  of  obscurity  and  artificiality ;  and  finally  he  turned 
his  attention  to  the  expression  of  character.  Of  the  first  of  these  three 
stages  we  have  nothing  left:  to  the  third,  the  Antigone  and  the  (Edipus  ait 
Colonus  must,  and  all  the  sorviving  dramas  may,  belong. 

*  Nauck.  154  and  856. 

»  786,  104.  *  860,  337.  »  396.  •  521.  '  619.         •  6t. 


2l8  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

painful  of  things.^  From  the  Laocoon  ^  we  have  an  anticipation 
of  Virgil's  reflection,  "Forsan  et  haec  olim  meminisse  juvabit :" 
and  from  the  Mysi  a  poetical  expression  of  the  psychological 
law  that  contrast  heightens  pleasure,^  another  exemplification  of 
which  may  be  found  in  a  fragment  of  the  Tympanistce,  which 
dwells  on  the  pleasure  after  a  voyage  of  being  under  a  good 
roof  and  listening  to  the  rain  with  drowsy  mind.^  The  con- 
nection between  mental  and  bodily  illness  had  not  escaped 
►Sophocles'  fine  observation.^  His  wisdom  comes  out  in  his 
reflections  in  the  Aletes  that  justice  and  kindliness  profit  more 
than  sophistry :  ^  in  the  Aleadoe  that  the  right  always  has 
great  might :  ^  in  the  Acrisius  that  a  lie  cannot  flourish  long  ; ' 
in  the  Aleadce  on  the  beauty  of  silence.^  Finally,  it  is  con- 
sonant with  the  amiability  of  Sophocles'  character  that  there  is 
a  limit  to  the  questions  which  a  man  with  consideration  for 
others'  feelings  can  put.^* 

As  belonging  to  the  "  school "  of  Sophocles,  there  are  men- 
tioned his  son  lophon  and  his  grandson  Sophocles.  lophon 
won  the  second  tragic  prize  in  B.C.  429,  and  seems  to  have  been 
suspected  of  receiving  assistance  from  his  father.  In  spite, 
however,  of  this,  he  is  criticised  as  being  frigid  and  tedious. 
The  grandson,  if,  as  is  reported,  he  won  the  tragic  prize  twelve 
times,  was  a  more  successful,  if  not  a  better  tragedian  than 
lophon,  and  won  the  prize  oftener  than  did  any  one  of  the 
three  great  tragedians.  Sophocles,  the  grandson,  produced  the 
CEdijMS  at  Golonus  after  his  grandfather's  death,  but  whether 
the  play  had  or  had  not  been  produced  before,  and  what  share 
the  grandson  had  in  the  play,  are  uncertain  points. 

An  interesting  figure  among  the  tragedians  contemporary 
with  Sophocles  is  that  of  Ion.  Born  in  Chios  and  possessed 
of  considerable  wealth,  he  travelled  much  in  Greece,  and  met 
all  the  distinguished  Greeks  of  his  time.  He  is,  perhaps,  the 
earliest  recorded  instance  of  an  universal  genius.  His  works 
included  not  only  tragedies,  but  elegies,  dithyrambs,  epigrams, 
skolia,  the  "antiquities  of  Chios,"  and  personal  reminiscences, 
from  the  last  of  wliich  a  specimen  was  quoted  at  the  beginning 
of  this  chapter.  He  first  produced  plays  on  the  Athenian  stage 
in  B.O.  452,  and  we  know  that  in  B.C.  428,  when  Euripides  and 
lophon  carried  off  the  first  and  second  prizes,  Ion  won  the  third. 
He  died  some  time  before  b.  c.  41 8,  the  year  in  which  the  PeacA 
of  Aristophanes  was  produced ;  for  his  death  is  alluded  to  in 
that  comedy  (835).     The  subjects  of  his  tragedies  were  largely 

*  323.  '344.  '  372.  *  574-  *  The  Tyro,  597. 

•  98.  '78.  •  59.  »  79.  "  lb.  81. 


THE  DRAMA  :    SOrHOCLES.  2  1 9 

taken  from  ITomer ;  but  in  other  cases  his  plots  departed  widely 
from  the  ordinary  form  of  the  myths  prevalent  among  the 
Greeks.  For  instance,  he  makes  Antigone  and  Ismene  to  be 
burnt  in  the  temple  of  Hera  by  the  son  of  Eteocles.  His 
plays,  though  correct  and  careful,  lacked  the  vigour  and  origi- 
aality  which  mark  a  tragedian  of  genius.  In  point  of  style,  he 
was  at  times  forcible,  and  his  figures  were  bold,  but  he  was  apt 
to  become  pompous,  and  occasionally  obscure.  His  vocabulary 
differs  from  that  of  Athenian  tragedies;  he  uses  words  of  his 
own  invention,  retains  many  lonicisms,  and  borrows  a  large 
proportion  of  words  from  epic  writers. 

The  age  of  Neophron  of  Sicyon  is  doubtful ;  but  if  it  is  true 
that  he  first  introduced  a  Paedagogus  on  the  stage,  he  must  date 
from  before  the  Eledra  of  Sophocles.  It  is,  however,  more 
interesting  that  Neophron  wrote  a  Medea,  to  which  Euripides' 
play  of  the  same  name  was  indebted.  The  fragments  of  Neo- 
phron's drama  show  that  he  was  a  poet  of  no  small  merit,  and 
also  point  to  the  conclusion  that  Euripides,  if  indebted  to  his 
predecessor,  borrowed  in  the  treatment  of  the  plot  rather  than 
from  the  style  of  Neophron.  Yet  in  one  point,  even  in  the 
economy  of  the  play,  Euripides  seems  to  have  departed  from 
Neophron's  treatment;  for  whereas  the  latter  makes  -^Egeus 
come  expressly  to  consult  Medea,  the  former  makes  him  come 
to  consult  Pittheus,  and  thus  what  is  essential  to  the  plot  is  left 
by  Euripides,  as  it  was  not  left  by  Neophron,  to  chance. 

Among  the  older  contemporaries  of  Sophocles  must  be  placed 
Carcinus  of  Agrigentum.  His  plays  were  of  an  antiquated 
description,  and  choral  songs  and  dances  predominated  in  them. 
He  is  better  known  as  a  founder  of  a  "  school "  than  as  a  poet. 
His  son  Xenocles  defeated  Euripides  in  B.C.  415,  and  Carcinus, 
the  son  of  Xenocles,  is  distinguished  by  Aristotle's  references  to 
him  in  the  Poetics  and  the  Rhetoric  He  seems  to  have  been 
careless  in  the  treatment  of  his  plays,  and  at  times  artificial. 
Amongst  other  plays  of  his  are  mentioned  an  (Edipus,  a  Medea, 
and  an  Orestes.  His  style  was  flowing,  he  was  inclined  to  be 
sententious,  and  had  a  tendency  to  philosophy.  His  versification 
18  lax  and  somewhat  couTersationaL 


220  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURES 

CHAPTER    IV. 

EURIPIDES. 

Euripides  was  bom  b.o  485,  in  the  island  of  Salamis,  where 
his  parents,  with  the  rest  of  the  Athenians,  had  taken  refuge  on 
the  approach  of  the  Persians.  We  have  the  express  statement 
of  Philochorus  (who  lived  about  B.C.  300)  for  the  fact  that  his 
mother,  Clito,  was  of  good  family  ;  and  his  father,  Mnesarchus, 
must  have  been  possessed  of  some  wealth,  for  Euripides  led 
the  chorus  of  boys  at  the  Thargelia,  and  later  in  life  attended 
the  lectures  of  Prodicus,  whose  fees  are  well  known  to  have 
been  exceedingly  high.  It  is  said  that  Euripides  was  at  first 
trained  as  an  atldete,  and  that  he  subsequently  became  a  painter. 
The  latter  statement  is  somewhat  confirmed  by  the  numerous 
allusions  in  his  plays  to  painting  and  to  art  generally,  and  by 
the  fact  that  his  situations  were  so  arranged  that  they  became 
the  subjects  of  many  works  of  art.  In  his  marital  relations  he 
is  said  to  have  been  unhappy,  though  on  this  point  we  are 
treated  to  much  scandal,  but  to  no  facts.  Some,  at  least,  of 
these  stories  ^  were  invented  to  account  for  a  misogynism  which 
does  not  exist  in  his  tragedies.  If  he  says  many  severe  things 
against  women,  he  draws  pure,  affectionate,  self-sacriticing 
women  with  a  grace  and  tenderness  unsurpassed.  It  is  not 
strange  that  a  poet  who  could  conceive  such  characters  should 
find  in  the  women  of  Athens  much  that  came  short  of  his  ideal. 
Under  the  system  of  seclusion  which  then  prevailed  in  Athens, 
there  is  little  reason  to  hesitate  in  accepting  Aristotle's  opinion,^ 
that  women  might  be  good,  but  were  generally  inferior.  If 
Euripides  spares  not  the  faults  of  women,  he  at  least  sees,  what 
most  other  Greeks  did  not  see,  that  the  system  under  which 
they  lived  was  to  blame.^  He  is  said  to  have  been  married 
twice,  and  to  have  had  by  his  first  wife  three  sons,  the  younger 
Euripides  and  two  others.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  brought 
out  his  first  play,  the  lost  Peliades ;  but  of  his  first  thirteen 
years'  work  as  a  dramatic  author  we  know  nothing.  The 
earliest  of  his  plays  which  have  survived  is  the  Alcestis.  The 
date  of  this  play  is  said  to  have  been  B.o.  438,  of  the  Medea, 
B.C.  431,  and  of  the  Hippolytus,  B.C.  428.  The  Medea  wontha 
third  prize.     Euripides,  according  to  the  scholiasts,   won  the 

1  E.g.  Sophocles'  comment  on  the  statement  that  Euripides  hated  womea 
>— *'  in  his  tragedies,  yes." 
•  Foet.  XT.  3.  *  Medea,  231-251. 


THE  DRAMA  :    EURIPIDES.  2  2  1 

tragic  prize  only  five  times.  Whatever  want  of  popularity  this 
may  be  taken  to  imply  was  due  probably  to  the  fact  that  the 
movements  with  which  he  was  in  sympathy  only  came  to 
triumph  in  later  times.  The  story  that,  when  called  upon  by 
an  audience  to  alter  something  in  one  of  his  plays,  he  said  he 
wrote  tragedies  for  their  instruction,  not  his,  is  intrinsically 
improbable,  and  cannot  be  taken  as  showing  the  relations  Avhich 
existed  between  Euripides  and  his  public ;  for  we  know  that 
the  Hippolytus,  which  we  have,  was  constructed  with  a  view  to 
avoid  the  faults  that  had  caused  the  failure  of  an  earlier  play 
by  Euripides  on  the  same  subject. 

If  on  many  social  and  speculative  questions  Euripides  was 
too  far  ahead  of  his  time  to  be  in  harmony  with  it,  in  his 
patriotism  at  least  he  was  at  one  with  the  Athenians  of  his 
day.  Although  he  took  no  part  in  tlie  internal  politics  of 
Athens,  and  utters  no  sentiment  on  them  beyond  the  proud 
loyalty  to  her  republican  constitution  and  her  history  which 
also  finds  expression  in  Sophocles,^  he  takes  a  keen  interest  in 
Athenian  foreign  politics.  After  the  Hecuha,  the  date  of  which 
is  fixed  to  be  B.C.  425  by  the  allusion  in  line  462  to  the  puri- 
fication of  Delos,  and  by  the  parody  of  line  174  in  the  Clouds, 
1 165,  the  next  three  plays  which  we  possess,  the  Andromache, 
the  Suppliants,  and  the  Heraclidce,,  all  have  a  political  object  for 
their  prime  motive  and  belong  to  the  period  of  B.c.  424 — B.C. 
418.  The  Andromache  is  an  attack  upon  Sparta,  and  the  other 
two  plays  were  designed  to  promote  or  to  confirm  the  alliance 
which  Athens  concluded  with  Argos  in  B.C.  420.  The  next  four 
plays  whose  dates  are  known  to  us  are  the  Troades,  B.C.  415  ; 
the  Heleiia,  b.c.  412  ;  the  Plioenissce,  B.C.  411  ;  and  the  Orestes, 
B.C.  408.  When  the  Ion,  the  Hercules  Furens,  the  Ipliigenia 
in  Tauris,  or  the  Electra  was  produced  we  do  not  know,  though 
on  grounds  of  style  and  metre  various  dates  have  been  assigned 
to  them.  The  date  is  also  unknown  of  the  Cyclops,  the  only 
surviving  specimen  of  the  satyric  drama. 

In  B.C.  409  Euripides  went,  for  what  reason  we  do  not  know, 
to  the  court  of  Archelaus,  king  of  Macedonia.  There  he  pro- 
duced the  Archelatis  in  honour  of  his  royal  host ;  and  there  too 

1  He  represents  Athens  as  growing  great  by  her  chivalrous  defence  of  the 
weak  in  the  Suppliants  and  the  HeracUdce,  and  sums  up  the  philosophy  of 
her  growth  in  the  words  iv  roU  Trovoiaii*  aC^erai,  Supp.  323.  The  intro- 
duction of  Theseus  into  the  Medea,  the  myth  of  \fhich  has  no  connection  with 
Athens,  the  conclusion  of  the  Ortstes  and  of  the  Hercules  Furens,  are  other 
instances  of  Euripides'  patriotism.  Cf.  also  Hec.  464 ;  Tro.  210,  216,  220, 
980 ;  Orett.  1666 ;  Heracli.  183 ;  Ion,  192,  272,  281,  683 ;  Here.  Fur.  477, 
1409. 


2  22  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

he  wroto  the  Bacchce.  The  subject  of  this  play,  which  ia  • 
celebration  of  the  power  of  Dionysus,  was  doubtless  suggested 
to  Euripides  by  his  visit  to  a  country  in  which  the  worship  of 
the  god  greatly  flourished.  The  Bacchce  is  not  only  interesting 
as  the  only  surviving  play  which  has  the  cult  of  Dionysus  for 
its  subject,  but  is  also,  from  the  point  of  view  of  art,  one  of  the 
finest  of  Greek  tragedies.  It  further  has  an  interest  as  showing, 
that  although  Euripides  felt  deeply  the  inconsistencies  and  the 
frequent  immorality  of  polytheism,^  he  never  so  utterly  aban- 
doned the  religion  of  his  country  as  to  find  it  impossible  to 
acquiesce  in  at  least  some  part  of  traditional  religion.  In  this 
respect,  as  in  others,  Euripides  faithfully  mirrors  the  life  of 
Athens.  The  difficulties  which  he  felt  with  regard  to  poly- 
theism were  not  felt  by  him  alone ;  and  although,  as  might  be 
expected  from  a  friend  of  Socrates,  he  occasionally  attained  to 
higher  conceptions,^  still  in  not  finally  or  wholly  renouncing 
polytheism  he  is  again  the  faithful  exponent  of  his  age.  The 
Bacchce  and  the  Iphigenia  at  Aulis,  were  only  put  upon  the 
Athenian  stage  after  his  death,  which  took  place  in  Macedonia 
in  B.C.  406. 

The  popularity  of  Euripides  was  in  ancient  times  very  great. 
His  plays  were  performed  even  in  Parthia,  and  many  of  the 
Athenians  who  became  prisoners  in  Sicily  after  the  disastrous 
termination  of  the  Sicilian  expedition,  regained  their  liberty  if 
they  were  able  to  recite  from  Euripides'  works.  He  is  referred 
to  and  quoted  frequently  by  ancient  writers ;  and  although  the 
fact  that  he  is  much  quoted  by  composers  of  anthologies  and 
such  works  tends  to  show  that  his  popularity  was  partly  due  to 
the  ease  with  which  general  reflections,  aphorisms,  &c.,  might 
be  detached   from  his  works,   still,   on  the   other  hand,  the 

^  E.g.  Here.  Fur.  344,  1341 ;  Ion,  444 ;  Iph.  T.  380.  There  are  many  such 
passages;  but  to  imagine  that  Euripides  is  always  covertly  ridiculing  the 
myths  which  were  almost  necessarily  the  subjects  of  his  plays,  and  that 
Euripides'  plays  were  designed  for  twoaudiences — for  the  ignorant  crowd,  who 
did  not  see  any  of  the  poet's  mockery,  and  for  the  author's  fellow-sceptics  in 
the  audience,  who  enjoyed  the  mockery — is  going  too  far.  It  is  the  logical 
consequence  of  such  criticism  that  a  German  writer  maintains  that  the 
Bacchce  is  a  burlesque — a  parody  on  the  poet's  enemy,  Aristophanes,  and  • 
travesty  of  the  worship  of  Dionysus. 

'  E.g.  Frag.  960  (Nauck)  : — 


Or  Frag.  968  :— 


Qebv  S^  iroiov  eliri  fioi  vorjTiov ; 

rbf  vdvd'  bpOivra  k'  ainbv  ovx  opd/ievofk 


voTos  5'  &!/  oTkos  TiKTbvijiv  Tr'KaaBels  viro 
difias  t6  Qilov  Trtpi^aXoi  Toix'^i'  TrTvxo-^s} 


THE  DRAMA  :    EURIPIDES.  22$ 

approval  of  Yirgil,^  Horace,^  Ovid,^  or  Theocritus  *  must  be  set 
in  Euripides'  favour.  The  popularity  which  is  manifested  by 
quotations  is  evidence  to  a  certain  extent  that  in  Euripides  the 
harmony  of  the  whole  is  sacrificed  to  the  beauty  of  the  parts  ; 
but  the  popularity  which  is  testified  to  by  the  fact  that  consi- 
derably more  plays  of  Euripides  have  been  preserved  than  of 
iEschylus  and  Sophocles  together,  is  evidence  that  Euripides 
was  appreciated  both  as  a  tragedian  and  as  a  poet.  Further, 
the  artistic  beauty  of  his  situations  in  themselves  is  shown  by 
the  numerous  works  of  art  inspired  by  his  tragedies.^  His 
popularity  is  in  part  doubtless  due  to  his  "anticipating  the 
spirit  of  the  age,"  although  the  Bacchce,  which,  as  far  as  we 
know,  was  the  most  popular  of  his  plays,  is  in  motive  and 
treatment  rather  behind  than  in  advance  of  the  poet's  time. 
However,  it  is  true  that  Euripides'  sympathies  were  with 
advanced  ideas.  His  association  with  Socrates  brought  him 
into  connection  with  the  movement  which  was  about  to  impart 
a  new  direction  to  philosophy,  and  to  make  Greek  thought  not 
only  Greek,  but  universal.  In  the  controversy  with  regard  to 
slavery,  which  Aristotle  incidentally  shows  existed  in  his  time,* 
Euripides  had  already  taken  the  side  of  the  slaves.^  Above  all, 
Euripides  strove  hard  to  inspire  the  Greeks  with  humanity.  In 
that  respect  he  rose  to  a  height  attained  neither  by  .^schylus, 
Sophocles,  nor  any  poet  among  his  predecessors.* 

*  uEn.  iv.  301,  469  et  seq.,  vii.  385  et  seq. 

*  Odes,  II.  xix.,  III.  i.  1-14,  xxv.  ;  Sat.  II.  iii.  302 ;  Ep.  I.  xvi.  73. 

2  Met.  iii.  511  et  seq.,  iv.  i  et  seq.,  vi.  587  et  seq. 

*  xxvi.  Euripides  is  also  alluded  to  in  Catullus,  Ixiii.  23,  Ixiv.  61,  252 
et  seq.  ;  Propertius,  III.  xvii.  24,  xxii.  35  ;  Persius,  i.  100  ;  Seneca,  (Ed,  404  ; 
Statius,  Theb.  iv.  565  et  seq. 

5  K.g.  scenes  from  the  Hippolytus  are  found  in  the  sarcophagus  from 
Agrigentum  and  on  a  relief  in  the  Louvre ;  from  the  Hecuha  on  a  Lucanian 
vase.  Timomachus  painted  subjects  from  the  Jphipenia  in  2'auris  and  Medea. 
Scopas  sculptured  a  Bacchante  from  the  description  in  the  Bacchce,  and 
the  Farnese  bull  represents  a  scene  from  the  Antiope.  Twenty-three  of 
Euripides'  plays  furnish  subjects  for  painting  or  sculpture  to  our  knowledge, 
»nd  probably  the  number  would  be  increased  if  we  knew  more  about  the  lost 
plays. 

*  At.  Pol.  i.  c.  3,  p.  1253b,  14  and  20. 

'  See  Andr.  82,  89,  136  seq.,  155  seq.,  186  seq.  ;  Phcen.  392  ;  Iph.  Aul.  313  ; 
Ion,  674,  854  ;  Orest.  1522  ;  Hec.  291,  348  seq.,  358  ;  Troad.  302,  489  seq.  ; 
Eel.  1640,  726,  744  ;  Ale.  138,  918.  He  sees  plainly  that  slaves  have  faults, 
but  that  is  due  to  their  slavery.  El.  633  ;  Orest.  ms,  1522  ;  Ion,  983  ;  and 
Frag.  49,  50,  52,  253,  690,  966. 

*  Not  only  does  he  maintain  that  a  slave  may  be  the  equal  of  his  master  in 
point  of  worth,  and  frequently  show  that  it  was  due  solely  to  the  cruel  acci- 
dents of  war  that  men  and  women  were  enslaved,  but  he  is  never  weary  of 
dwelling  on  the  horrors  of  war,  .and  of  demonstrating  to  his  audience  that  a 
man  or  woman  need  not  be  a  Greek  to  suffer  and  to  deserve  sympathy.  E.g. 
♦he  Hecuba  and  the  Medea,    In  the  latter  play,  not  only  does  Euripides,  th« 


2  24  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

But  if,  on  the  one  hand,  Euripides  owes  some  of  his  succesa 
to  his  anticipation  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  to  this  very  cause  that  most  of  his  faults  must  be  attri- 
buted. He  exhibits  all  the  awkwardness  and  defects  of  a 
transition  stage.  If  Sophocles  laid  his  scenes  in  "  a  past  which 
never  was  present,"  he  at  any  rate  adhered  to  his  imaginary 
period  with  fidelity.  But  Euripides  lays  his  scenes  in  a  time 
which  is  neither  past  nor  present,  but  an  incongruous  and 
impossible  epoch,  in  which  Theseus  defends  the  republican  in- 
stitutions of  Athens,^  and  Hecuba  regrets  the  high  price  of 
Sophists'  lectures.2  Euripides  was  impelled  towards  reality  by 
a  true  instinct  and  by  dramatic  feeling,  but  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  discard  myths  as  the  subjects  of  his  plays,  and  on 
no  other  condition  could  the  reality  he  wished  to  depict  be 
attained.  At  the  same  time,  if  the  history  of  tragedy  and  of  art 
drove  him  in  the  direction  of  real  life,  comedy  already  fully 
occupied  the  field  on  which  he  wished  to  enter. 

If  now,  commencing  with  the  plot,  we  proceed  to  examine  the 
elements  of  the  Euripidean  drama,  we  shall  find  that  throughout 
Euripides  is  hampered,  and  is  conscious  that  he  is  hampered,  by 
a  tradition  which  he  feels  is  antiquated,  but  has  not  the  power 
entirely  to  abandon. 

The  two  most  obvious  changes  or  additions  which  Euripides 
introduced  with  regard  to  the  plot  are  the  prologue  ^  and  the 
*' deus  ex  machina"  to  assist  the  denoHment.*  The  prologue  is 
generally  spoken  by  one  of  the  characters  taking  part  in  the 
play,  although  occasionally,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  Hecuba,  by 

woman-hater,  show  that  the  woman  is  right  and  the  man  wrong  (a  paradox 
which  he  insists  on  in  the  chorus  of  410),  but  he  also  claims  sympathy  for  the 
"  barbarian  "  woman  against  her  Greek  lover. 

1  Supp.  405  et  seq. 

2  Hec.  816. 

'  A  irpoXoyos  in  the  Greek  sense  (Arist,  Poet,  xii,  ?ffTi  5^  irpdXoyot  niv 
Itipo^  6\ov  rpaytfiSias  rb  irpb  xopoO  irapb^ov)  is  to  be  found  in  jEschylus  and 
Sophocles,  and  in  both  poets  tlie  TrpbXoyos  includes  an  exposition  of  those 
facts  which  it  is  necessarj'  that  the  spectator  should  be  put  ir.  possession  of. 
But  ^schylus  and  Sophocles  contrive  to  give  the  spectator  this  information 
by  means  of  soliloquies  (e.^.  the  Agamemnon,  Choephori,  and  Eumenides  of 
^schylus  ;  the  Trachinice  of  Sophocles  does  not  begin  with  a  soliloquy )  ot 
dialogue,  which  are  so  natural  or  necessary  to  the  action  of  the  pl&y  as  not 
to  have  the  appearance  of  being  devised  for  the  benefit  of  the  audience. 
(This,  however,  cannot  be  said  of  the  two  earliest  plays  of  ^schylus,  the 
Persce  and  the  Suppliants,  which  have  no  irpdXoyos,  and  a  very  artificial 
exposition.)  Euripides,  however,  gives  up  all  attempt  at  dramatic  illusion, 
and  puts  into  the  mouth  of  an  actor  a  narrative,  the  avowed  object  of  which 
U  the  enlightenment  of  the  audience. 

*  The  Philoctetes  is  terminated  by  means  of  a  " deus  ex  machina," hxiihen 
Bophocles  was  possibly  taking  a  hint  from  Euripide*. 


THE  DRAMA  :    EURIPIDES.  2  2  5 

a  character  wlio  does  not  again  appear.  Frequently  the  pro- 
logue is  something  considerably  more  than  what  we  understand 
by  a  prologue,  that  is  to  say,  it  not  only  includes  a  narration  of 
those  events  of  which  a  knowledge  is  requisite  for  the  apprecia- 
tion of  the  play,  but  also  gives  a  sketch  of  the  plot  of  the  play. 
Sometimes,  however,  as  in  the  Eledra  or  the  IpMgenia  in 
Tauris,  the  prologue  contains  no  foreshadowing  of  the  play, 
and  gives  no  information  which  could  not,  in  the  absence  of 
the  prologue,  be  inferred  from  the  play  as  it  proceeds. 

The  object  with  which  the  deus  ex  macMna  is  made  to 
intervene  is  tolerably  apparent.  The  poet  thus  gains  much 
time  which  would  otherwise-  be  spent  in  unravelling  the  plot. 
This  on  the  whole  is  probably  also  the  object  with  which  the 
prologue  is  written.  Even  when  the  prologue  sketches  the 
play  which  is  to  follow,  Euripides  only  gives  the  myth  as  it 
was  generally  known.  The  particular  means  by  which  the 
various  events  notified  by  the  prologue  are  to  be  brought  about 
are,  of  course,  not  alluded  to.  In  both  cases  the  motive  seems 
to  have  been  to  give  as  little  time  as  possible  to  the  myth  as 
traditionally  related,  in  order  to  concentrate  attention  on  the 
incidents  and  situations  of  Euripides'  own  making.  Euripides 
could  not  throw  off  the  myths  altogether,  but  got  rid  of  them 
as  much  as  possible  by  relegating  them  to  the  prologue  and  to 
the  dem  ex  machina.  Whatever  the  motive  with  which  these 
two  devices  were  used,  they  are  none  the  less  bad  art ;  ^  and 
although  historically  they  may  have  been  demanded  by  circum- 
stances, this  is  a  consideration  which  explains  but  hardly  justi- 
fies them.  Setting  aside  the  prologue  and  this  form  of  d^noli- 
ment,  we  cannot  but  be  amazed  at  the  interest  which  Euripides 
contrives  to  put  into  his  plots.  There  is  an  excitement  about 
them  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  Sophocles,  nor  to  be  looked 
for  in  vEschylus.  The  inventiveness  and  fertility  of  Euripides 
in  this  respect  shows  his  technical  skill  as  a  playwright.  These 
remarks,  it  must  be  noticed,  are  not  intended  to  apply  to  all 
the  dramas  of  Euripides,  though  they  do  apply  to  those  which 
are  characteristic  of  him.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  make  any 
one  assertion  which  shall  be  true  of  all  his  plays,  so  much  does 
he  vary.  Not  being  separated  by  time  from  the  form  of  the 
drama  which  precedes  his  own,  but  seeing  it  year  after  year  put 

*  The  soliloquy  which  opens  the  Medea  must  be  excepted  from  this  criti- 
cism. Its  quality  is  comparable  with  the  opening  of  Sophocles'  Trachinia 
(which  is  almost  indistinguishable  from  a  soliloquy,  although  it  is  addressed 
to  Deianira's  household  slaves),  and  it  shows  that  Euripides,  although  ha 
generally  employed  the  more  bald  form  of  prologue,  was  capable  of  a  simple, 
effective,  and  artistic  exposition, 

P 


2  26  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

on  the  stage  by  Sophocles,  Euripides  did  not  experience  th« 
difficulty  which  would  be  felt  by  an  author  endeavouring  to  go 
back  to  a  style  of  composition  which  had  ceased  to  be  practised. 
On  the  contrary,  in  the  drama  of  Sophocles  Euripides  saw  a 
method  of  composition  living  with  success,  which  it  was  com- 
petent for  him  to  try,  and  which  he  did  try.  Hence  it  is  that 
we  have  from  Euripides  plays  such  as  the  Heradidce,  the 
SuppUces,  the  Hecuba,  &c,,  which  do  not  rely  upon  exciting 
the  spectator's  curiosity,  but  depend  for  their  interest  on  the 
pity,  or,  in  the  case  of  the  Bacchce,  on  the  religious  sentiment 
which  they  evoke.  But  his  powers  are  not  limited  to  any  one 
or  to  some  few  resources;  they  extend  to  all  the  resources  of 
tragic  art.  Exciting  plots,  as  in  the  Iphigenia  in  Tauris, 
terror,  as  in  the  Hercules  Furens  or  the  Medea,  pathos  of  the 
purest  and  most  simple  kind,  as  in  the  Iphigenia  at  Aulis,  the 
Alcestis,  and  many  other  plays,  constitute  the  excellence  of 
Euripides.  His  character-drawing  is  in  some  cases  of  the 
highest  kind,  but  he  frequently  sacrifices  consistency  in  the 
delineation  of  character  to  the  temptation  of  producing  a  strik- 
ing situation ;  or  perhaps  it  is  more  accurate  to  say  that  he 
did  not  possess  the  power  which  marks  Sophocles  of  conceiving 
a  character  whose  actions  naturally  and  necessarily  result  in 
impressive  situations.  Euripides  possesses  the  technical  skill 
of  the  playwright  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  he  possesses 
the  genius  of  the  dramatist. 

There  are  plays  of  Euripides  in  which  the  chorus  discharges 
the  functions  of  sympathy  and  comment  in  the  same  way,  and 
with  as  little  awkwardness,  as  in  Sophocles.  Such  plays  are  the 
Bacchce,  the  Heradidce,  and  the  Hecuba.  In  the  Ion,  indeed, 
the  chorus  is  made  to  take  an  important  share  in  the  action  of 
the  drama  by  revealing  Xuthus'  intentions  with  regard  to  Ion, 
and  thus  the  central  event  of  the  play,  the  attempted  murder  of 
Ion  by  his  mother,  is  brought  about.  But  in  spite  of  these  ex- 
ceptions, it  is  characteristic  of  Euripides  that  he  feels  (and  makes 
little  attempt  to  conceal)  that  the  chorus  is  a  clog  on  the  develop- 
ment of  a  play.  Even  Sophocles  had  found  that  the  continual 
presence  of  the  chorus  throughout  a  tragedy  was  inconsistent 
with  ends  and  effects  which  a  poet  may  legitimately  endeavour 
to  attain,  and  in  the  Ajax  Sophocles  boldly  dismisses  the  chorus 
from  the  stage,  in  order  that  Ajax  may  deliver  his  famous  soli- 
loqvy.  It  is  strange  that  although  Euripides  liimself  repeats 
this  experiment  in  the  Alcestis  and  the  Helena,  he  never  de- 
veloped it  into  a  regular  practice.  The  strength  of  tradition 
was  so  great  in   this  case,  that  Euripides,  rather  than  break 


THE  DRAMA  :    EURIPIDES.  2  27 

through  it,  retained  the  chorus  even  when  its  presence  produced 
effects  the  most  inartistic.  There  are  many  occurrences  in  real 
life  which  are  fit  subjects  for  dramatic  representation,  but  are 
not  such  as  are  conducted  in  the  presence  of  twelve  or  fifteen 
comparative  strangers.  Although  even  the  private  life  of  an 
Athenian  was  considerably  more  public  than  is  modern  private 
life,  Euripides,  whose  strength  lies  in  domestic  scenes,  was  likely 
to  find  the  chorus  a  greater  difficulty  than  did  Sophocles.  At 
the  same  time,  the  surprises  and  complications  which  he  aimed 
at  producing  by  the  construction  of  his  plots  were,  by  the  con- 
tinual presence  of  the  chorus,  rendered  difficult  to  obtain.  Thus, 
in  the  Hippolytus,  the  chorus,  who  have  been  present  when 
Phaedra  declares  her  passion  for  Hippolytus  to  the  nurse,  and 
who  consequently  know  that  the  charge  made  by  Phaedra  against 
Hippolytus  is  untrue,  do  not  tell  the  truth  and  save  Theseus 
from  causing  his  son's  death,  because  they  have  been  sworn  to 
secrecy.  Euripides  adopts  the  same  stage  device  in  the  Medea 
to  account  for  the  chorus  not  revealing  Medea's  designs  of 
murder.  In  the  Eledra,  Euripides  does  not  take  the  trouble 
even  to  administer  the  oath  of  secrecy  to  the  chorus,  but  says 
that  they  will  keep  the  secret.  The  value  of  the  chorus'  oath 
in  Euripides'  eyes  is  shown  by  the  readiness  with  which  they 
break  it  when  necessary,  as  in  the  Hippolytus.  It  is  not,  there- 
fore, surprising  that  in  the  Iphigenia  at  Aulis  Euripides  aban- 
dons all  attempt  at  dramatic  illusion,  and  allows  the  chorus  to 
be  present  at  a  secret  interview  between  Agamemnon  and  Mene- 
laus,  without  reference  to  the  fact  that  the  chorus  would  natu- 
rally reveal  what  it  knew  to  Clytemestra  and  Iphigenia. 

In  Sophocles  the  continual  presence  of  the  chorus  is  rendered 
plausible,  because  the  chorus  is  placed  in  relations  of  sympathy 
or  confidence  with  some  leading  character  (with  the  heroine  in 
the  Eledra,  or  with  the  character  opposed  to  the  heroine  in  the 
Antigone),  who  occupies  the  stage  almost  continually.^  Owing 
to  the  more  intricate  plots  of  Euripides,  it  is  almost  impossible 
for  one  character  to  remain  perpetually  present  on  the  stage ; 
plans  and  events  have  to  be  revealed  to  the  spectator  which 
must  be  concealed  from  the  hero,  and  thus  the  chorus,  which 
still  in  Euripides  continues  to  stand  in  a  closer  relation  to  the 
hero  than  to  any  other  character,  is  frequently  left,  by  the  neces- 
sary absences  of  the  hero,  in  an  isolated  and  somewhat  false 
position,  as  is  the  case  in  the  Iphigenia  at  Aulis. 

^  In  the  Philoctetes  Sophocles  made  the  chorus  consist  of  Bailors,  thus  de- 
parting from  tradition,  obviously  because,  as  Neoptolemus,  not  Philoctetei^ 
occapies  the  stage  continuously,  the  chorus  must  be  attached  to  the  formw. 


228  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

As  the  presence  of  the  chorus  is  without  effect  on  the  action 
of  the  play,  so  the  odes  assigned  to  it  have  tisually  in  Euripides 
little  to  do  with  the  subject  of  the  play.  They  often  bear  no 
special  relation  to  the  scene  which  has  preceded,  and  occasion- 
ally have  no  reference  to  anything  in  the  play.  Euripides  thus 
closely  approaches  the  practice  of  later  dramatists,  whose  choral 
odes  might  be  with  equal  propriety  sung  in  any  play,  and  were 
merely  designed  to  afford  the  spectator  that  relief  which  is  given 
in  modern  times  by  an  interval  between  the  acts.^  In  Euri- 
pides the  choral  odes  are  poems,  which  rely  on  their  intrinsic 
beauty  as  poetry  rather  than  on  the  interest  which  attaches  to 
expressions  of  the  poet's  own  opinions  on  religious  and  moral 
questions,  ^schylus  frequently  conveyed  his  opinions  on  such 
subjects  through  the  odes  of  the  chorus,  but  Euripides  dis- 
tributes the  duty  of  expressing  his  views  among  all  his  charac- 
ters impartially  ;  and  hence  we  have  slaves,  kings,  and  heroines, 
all  uttering  sentiments  admirable  in  themselves,  although  some- 
what frigid  and  unnatural  under  the  circumstances. 

The  constraints  of  a  transition  period  which  cramp  Euripides 
elsewhere  have  left  their  mark  upon  his  character-drawing  also. 
Compelled  by  the  tradition  of  the  tragic  art  to  take  his  subjects 
from  mythology,  Euripides  was  impelled  by  his  instinct  as  an 
artist  to  draw  his  characters  from  real  life ;  and  to  present  the 
heroes  of  mythology  acting  from  everyday  motives  and  with 
everyday  feelings,  was  to  attempt  in  most  cases  an  impossible 
fusion.  The  slaying  of  Clyteraestra  by  Orestes  is  a  proper  sub- 
ject for  the  art  of  Sophocles  or  iEschylus,  but  is  wholly  unsuited 
to  the  new  form  of  art  which  Euripides  was  making  for.  To 
the  Greeks,  accustomed  to  the  figures  of  Sophocles  or  ^schylus, 
it  must  have  seemed,  as  it  seemed  to  Aristotle,  that  the  dramatis 
perso7ice  of  Euripides  often  had  characters  unnecessarily  bad. 
In  his  endeavours  to  substitute  truth  to  nature  for  trutli  to  lite- 
rary tradition,  Euripides  had  to  work  upon  materials  and  with 
tools  not  designed  for  the  effects  which  he  wished  to  produce. 
It  is,  then,  striking  proof  of  his  power  that  he  rose  above  all 
these  obstacles,  and  gave  to  the  world  such  triumphs  of  charac- 
ter-drawing as  his  Alcestis,  Medea,  or  Iphigenia.  He  depicts 
the  madness  of  Hercules  and  the  passion  of  Phaedra  with  the 
force  and  intensity  of  a  master ;  and  it  is  true  that,  great  as 
Euripides  is  in  the  anatomy,  he  is  still  greater  in  the  pathology 

1  "The  performers  in  the  orchestra  of  a  modern  theatre  are  little,  I 
believe,  aware  that  they  occupy  the  place,  and  may  consider  themselvei 
as  the  lineal  descendants,  of  the  ancient  chorua." — Twining'a  Ariiktlt, 
p.  103  n. 


THE  drama:    EURIPIDES.  2  29 

of  the  soul.  But  love  and  madness  are  not  the  only  emotions 
which  he  is  capable  of  representing,  and  if  Phaedra  is  a  subject 
■which  is  "neither  morally  nor  artistically  pure,"^  Alcestis  may 
be  quoted  to  prove  the  power  and  the  purity  of  Euripides  both 
morally  and  artistically.  It  remains  true,  however,  that  Euri- 
pides is  in  artistic  purity,  as  in  character-drawing,  inferior  to 
Sophocles,  and  in  genius  inferior  to  both  Sophocles  and  JEscYij- 
lus.  The  discords  which  exist  in  Euripides'  plays  between  his 
character-drawing  and  his  situations,  between  his  sentiments 
and  his  mythical  subjects,  between  the  necessities  of  his  plots 
and  the  presence  of  the  chorus,  are  discords  which  Sophocles 
avoided  and  Euripides  could  not  or  would  not  convert  into  har- 
monies. 

Euripides'  style  is  characterised  by  a  smoothness  and  polish 
which  imply  much  hard  work.  In  point  of  vocabulary,  Euri 
pides  made  a  greater  advance  towards  the  ordinary  Attic  of  the 
day  than  Sophocles  had  done.  In  respect  also  of  expression 
and  imagery,  Euripides  adopts  a  style  far  less  exalted  than  that 
of  Sophocles  or  ^schylus.  This  difference  in  style  between 
Euripides  and  the  two  older  tragedians  is  quite  in  keeping  with 
the  difference  between  their  art  and  the  newer  form  for  which 
Euripides  was  preparing  the  way.  If  there  are  truths  which 
demand  lofty  language  for  their  proper  expression,  there  are 
also  truths  which  require  more  precise  enunciation  ;  and  there 
are  few  emotions  for  which  the  simplest  words  are  not  the  best 
utterance.  In  the  pleadings  of  an  Iphigenia,  the  self-sacrifice 
of  a  Macaria,  the  sorrows  of  an  Andromache,  we  want  no  wealth 
of  words  or  luxury  of  ideas  to  stand  between  us  and  the  beauty 
of  the  character.  Euripides,  being  an  artist,  appreciated  the 
worth  of  simplicity.  The  metaphors  and  similes  of  ^schylus 
are  drawn  mostly  from  nature — from  pugnacious  nature.  Those 
of  Sophocles  are  also  drawn  from  nature,  but  from  her  more 
peaceful  aspect.  In  Euripides  we  meet  with  similes  and  meta- 
phors from  art,2  showing  at  once  the  poet's  susceptibility,  and 
the  effect  which  the  Athens  of  Pericles  made  upon  the  citizens 
of  Athens. 

The  fragments  of  Euripides'  lost  plays  which  are  to  be  found 
in  various  anthologists,  grammarians,  lexicographers,  and  others 
are  more  numerous  than  those  either  of  ^schylus  or  Sophocles. 

^  Mommsen,  Hist,  of  Rome,  ii.  451. 

2  E.g.  from  architecture,  Ale.  311,  457,  Med.  390,  Or.  1203,  Cycl.  352, 
353!  477)  ^I'O'  489,  Phcen.  84,  Hel.  44,  605,  Iph.  Taur.  1462,  Frag.  362, 
779 ;  from  sculpture,  Hec.  561,  Frag.  124 ;  from  painting,  Hel.  255, 
Hec.  807. 


230  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

The  best  known  is  "  Evil  communications  corrupt  good  man- 
ners." 1  The  knowledge  of  human  nature  which  is  shown  in 
this  famous  fragment  appears  again  in  a  fragment  of  the 
Alcmene,  which  declares  the  need  of  wisdom  in  the  hour  of 
prosperity,^  and  in  another  which  says  tliat  "  most  evils  are  of 
men's  own  doing."  '  The  same  knowledge  takes  a  somewhat 
cynical  turn  when  he  says  in  the  Cretan  Women*  that  "all 
men  are  friendly  to  the  wealthy."  But  the  poet's  own  heart 
was  sound,  for  in  the  Didys^  he  notices  that  the  poor  aie 
oftener  wiser  than  the  wealthy,  and  often  more  pious  with  their 
scanty  offerings  than  the  rich  with  their  offerings  of  bulls.  His 
faith  in  the  right  shines  out  often  in  the  fragments.  "  Gold 
and  silver  are  not  the  only  currency,"  he  says  in  the  CEdipus  ;  * 
"  Virtue  is  current  everywheie."  Justice  may  limp — "  claudo 
pede  " — but  she  overtakes  the  wrong-doer  ;  '^  and  all  evil  deeds 
must  out,  he  says  in  the  Melanippe.^  This  faith  in  morality 
could  not  fail  to  have  its  effect  on  his  religious  beliefs,  and  we 
find  in  the  CEnomaus,^  "  When  I  see  the  wicked  fall,  then  I  say 
there  are  gods."  And  although  he  does  formulate  the  some- 
what transcendentalist  tenet  that  "  the  god  in  each  man  is  his 
mind,"  ^^  at  other  times  in  a  more  ordinary  strain  he  says, 
"Without  God  there  is  no  prosperity  for  man,"^^  and  "the 
ways  of  Heaven  are  mysterious."  ^^  Among  the  fragments  are 
many  relating  to  women ;  and  although  we  find  such  state- 
ments in  the  CEdipus  as  that  "  every  wife  is  worse  than  her 
husband,  should  the  worst  man  marry  the  best,"  ^^  and  in 
the  Alope  that  educating  women  is  a  mistake,  because  "  the 
well-educated  deceive  us  more  than  the  neglected  ; "  ^*  still  else- 
where, in  the  Melanippe,  he  says  that  "though  there  is  nothing 
worse  than  a  bad  woman,  there  is  nothing  better  than  a  good 
one."  ^^  With  sound  common  sense  he  declares  in  the  Protesilaiis 
that  a  man  who  classes  all  women  together  is  a  fool ;  some  are 
good  and  some  bad  ;  ^^  and  elsewhere  that  all  men  are  not 
unlucky  in  marriage  any  more  then  all  men  are  lucky  ;  it  depends 
on  the  wife  a  man  gets ;  '^'^  and  in  the  Melanippe  that  "  bad 
women  have  given  a  bad  name  to  the  whole  sex."  ^^  What 
Euripides  thought  of  marriage  with  a  good  wife  we  may  see 
from  such  passages  as  this  from  the  Antigone}^  "  A  man's  best 
possession  is  a  sympathetic  wife,"  and  "A  loving  husband  ia 

1  Nauck,  T.  G.  F.  1013.                2  n,,  100.  ^  jb.  1015.  4  jb,  465. 

8  lb.  329,  940.       8  lb.  546.          '  lb.  969.  8  lb.  509.  »  lb.  581. 

w  lb.  10C7.            "  lb.  1014.  12  lb.  941.  13  lb.  550.  "  lb.  iia. 

"  lb.  497.             18  lb.  658.  17  lb.  1042.  i»  lb.  496.  i»  lb.  164. 


THE  DRAMA  :    EURIPIDES.  23  1 

a  woman's  wealth."^  In  thie  Phrixu^,^  too,  lie  dwells  on  the 
charms  of  a  wife's  ministrations  in  times  of  sickness  and  dis- 
tress, and  elsewhere  ^  on  the  influence  of  a  good  wife  in  saving 
the  home  which  a  dissolute  husband  would  otherwise  ruin.  In 
the  Didys^  he  has  verses  on  the  happiness  of  paternal,  and  in 
the  Erechtheus  ^  of  maternal  love.  It  is  consistent  with  his  just 
remarks  on  marriage  that  both  in  the  Antiope^  and  in  the 
CEdipus"^  he  says  that  beauty  in  a  woman  without  nobility  of 
mind  is  little  worth.  Elsewhere — in  the  Melanippe^ — he  is 
fatalistic  :  marriages  are  made  in  heaven,  and  it  is  useless  to  go 
against  destiny.  His  fatalism  comes  out  also  in  the  Peliades^ 
where  his  advice  is  "not  to  kick  against  the  pricks."  On  the 
subject  of  slavery  Euripides'  utterances  in  the  fragments  are 
divided.  In  the  Phrixvs  '^^  he  says,  "  All  that  is  disgraceful  in 
many  slaves  is  the  name :  in  mind  they  are  often  less  slavish 
than  the  free."  But  in  the  Alcm.eon}'^  "  Whoso  trusts  a  slave  is 
a  fool."  The  problems  of  heredity  seem  to  have  exercised  his 
mind :  good  men  have  good  sons,^^  and  a  good  child  cannot 
come  of  a  bad  father. '^^  On  the  other  hand,  you  may  have  a 
fine  child  from  inferior  parents,  he  says  in  the  Meleager}* 
Good  birth  he  thinks  inferior  to  good  acts;^^  and  in  the  Alcmene  ^^ 
we  have  a  partial  Greek  translation  for  noblesse  oblige. 

The  only  member  of  the  "  school "  of  Euripides  who  is  men- 
tioned to  us  is  the  nephew  Euripides,  who,  after  his  xmcle's 
death,  brought  out  the  Ipliigenia  at  Aulis,  the  Alcmoeon,  and  the 
Bacchoe,  and  won  the  prize  with  them.  He  is  said  also  to  have 
written  tragedies  himself,  but  we  know  nothing  of  them,  and, 
indeed,  are  uncertain  whether  this  Euripides  was  the  nephew 
or  the  sou  of  the  famous  poet. 

Four  years  older  than  Euripides,  and  a  rival  of  Euripides  and 
Sophocles,  was  Achseus  of  Eretria.  Of  his  life  we  know  nothing 
except  that  he  once  won  the  tragic  prize;  and  since  he  is  not  men- 
tioned by  Aristophanes  in  the  Frogs  as  among  the  survivors  of 
Sophocles,  it  has  been  inferred  that  he  had  died  before  the  pro- 
duction of  that  comedy.  His  satyric  dramas,  the  titles  of  seven 
of  Avhich  have  come  down  to  us,  are  said  to  have  been  in  the 
first  rank.  The  subjects  of  several  of  his  tragedies  are  taken 
from  the  Cyclic  poets,  e.g.  his  Adrastus,  (Ediptis,  Piritlwus, 
and  Philoctetes ;  and  in  his  TJieseus  he  paid  Athens  the  compli- 
ment of  selecting  an  Attic  myth.     His  style  is  apt  to  becoma 

^  Nanck,  1047.  ^  ib.  819.  *  lb.  1041.  *  lb.  333. 

*  lb.  360.  «  lb,  211.  '  lb,  552.  •  lb.  503. 

»  lb.  607.  W  lb.  828  ;  cf.  515,  "  lb.  87.  12  ib_  76. 

»  lb.  344.  M  lb.  531.  15  lb.  9.  16  lb.  99. 


232  HISTOEY  OF  GREEK  LITERATUKE. 

obscure,  his  diction  is  ornate  and  sometimes  artificial,  his  de« 
scriptions  minute,  and  pushed  rather  too  far. 

The  greatest,  however,  of  Euripides'  rivals  was  the  Athenian 
Agathon.  Born  probably  about  b.c.  447,  Agathon  was  a  man 
of  education  and  refinement.  His  natural  abilities  at  an  early 
age  impressed  Socrates,  and  the  charm  of  his  character  secured 
him  the  friendship  of  Plato,  whose  Symposium  was  wiitten  to 
celebrate  Agathon's  victory  in  the  tragic  contest  of  B.C.  416. 
The  time  of  his  death  is  uncertain,  but  fell  about  B.C.  400. 
Placed  by  the  Alexandrine  grammarians  in  their  canon  amongst 
the  first  tragedians,  he  probably  ranked  next  to  the  Three, 
Aristotle  not  only  mentions  him  several  times  in  the  PoeticSy 
but  testifies  practically  to  his  merit,  and  shows  his  own  fondness 
for  this  tragedian  by  the  frequency  with  which  he  quotes  him 
in  the  Ethics  and  the  Rhetoric.  Agathon's  power  as  a  tragedian 
is  shown  by  the  freedom  with  which  he  treated  the  chorus, 
the  music,  and  the  subjects  of  tlie  drama.  The  musical  inno- 
vations which  he  made  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  appreciate, 
though  the  songs  which  Aristophanes  makes  him  sing  in  the 
Thesmophoi'iazusce  exemplified  his  changes  in  the  music  of  the 
drama.  With  regard  to  the  chorus,  we  know  that  he  first  com- 
posed odes  capable  of  being  sung  with  equal  appropriateness  in 
any  drama  whatever,  and  thus  these  choruses  ^  came  to  serve 
only  the  same  purpose  as  the  music  of  the  orchestra  between 
the  acts  in  a  modern  theatre.  In  his  selection  of  subjects  he 
had  the  courage  to  execute  what  Euripides  had  only  the  power 
to  conceive.  That  is,  he,  at  any  rate  in  the  Anthos  (if  this  was 
the  name  of  the  piece),  abandoned  the  domains  of  myth  and 
history  entirely,  and  composed  a  tragedy  which  was  original  in 
its  subject  as  well  as  in  its  treatment.  In  this  proceeding  he 
shows  the  influence  of  the  circumstances  in  which  he  found 
himself.  All  that  could  be  made  out  of  the  myths  suitable  for 
the  stage  had  already  been  drawn  from  them  by  his  predecessors, 
and  he  was  thus  compelled  either  to  have  recourse  to  his  own 
imagination  for  a  subject,  as  he  did  with  success  in  the  case  of 
the  Anthos,  or  to  crowd  into  one  play  mythical  incidents  enough 
to  have  furnished  forth  half-a-dozen  dramas  in  earlier  times, — 
a  proceeding  which,  according  to  Aristotle,  proved  fatal  to  one 
play  (unnamed)  of  Agathon's,  otherwise  not  unworthy  of  success. 
Agathon's  style  also,  as  was  natural  in  an  admirer  of  Gorgias, 
shows  traces  of  the  fatal  influence  which  rhetoric  was  beginning 
to  assert  over  the  drama.  Antitheses  and  plays  upon  thoughts 
and  words,  for  instance,  are  frequent 


THE  drama:    EURIPIDES.  233 

Amongst  other  contemporaries  of  Euripides  may  be  mentioned 
Aristarchus,  who  is  said  to  have  lived  a  hundred  years,  to  have 
written  a  hundred  tragedies,  and  to  have  won  the  prize  twice  j 
Morychus,  Acestor,  Gnesippus,  Hieronymus,  Nothippus,  Sthene- 
]us,  Spintharus,  Cleophon,  Theognis,  Nicomachus,  who  defeated 
Euripides  once,  Pythangelus,  Pantacles,  and,  finally,  Critias, 
the  chief  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants.  "We  have  a  long  fragment  of 
the  Sisiiphus  of  Critias,  which  in  ancient  times  was  attributed 
doubtfully  to  Euripides.  The  grounds  for  this  seem  to  have 
been  an  inadequate  appreciation  of  Euripides'  religious  opinions, 
and  an  erroneous  assumption  that  no  tragedian  but  Euripides 
could  have  doubts  on  relicfion.  The  passage  in  question  makes 
the  gods  to  be  an  invention  of  state-craft,  designed  for  the 
prevention  of  offences  which  elude  the  law.  That  such  a  dis- 
sertation could  have  any  artistic  appropriateness  in  a  tragedy  is 
impossible,  and  it  serves  to  show  the  value  of  the  drama  of  the 
time.  The  style  of  the  fragment  is  clear,  but  scarcely  poetical ; 
the  metre  is  exceedingly  lax. 

The  tragedians  of  the  fourth  century  are  little  more  than 
names  to  us,  as,  for  instance,  Mamercus,  Apollodorus,  Timesi- 
theus,  and  Dicasogenes.  The  elder  Dionysius,  tyrant  of  Syracuse, 
devoted  himself  with  much  zeal  to  the  drama,  and  had  some  of 
his  tragedies  put  upon  the  Athenian  stage  in  a  manner  regard- 
less of  expense,  to  the  great  amusement  of  the  Athenians.^  Of 
more  merit  as  a  tragedian  was  Antiphon  (not  the  orator),  who 
is  quoted,  as  though  generally  known,  by  Aristotle.  Eheto- 
ricians,  such  as  Aphareus  and  Theodectes,  continued  to  be  im- 
ported into  the  ranks  of  the  tragedians.  Both  Theodectes  and 
Aphareus  were  pupils  of  Isocrates.  The  style  of  the  former  was 
correct  and  elegant,  and  his  metre  exceedingly  free.  As  was  to 
be  expected,  he  developed  the  rhetorical  element  in  tragedy  to  a 
considerable  extent,  and  being  throughout  an  orator  rather  than 
a  poet,  he  not  unnaturally  conceived  numerous  scenes  in  the 
spirit  rather  of  the  law-court  than  of  the  stage.  Aristotle 
seems  to  have  been  well  acquainted  with  his  works,  for  at 
different  times  he  mentions  seven  of  his  tragedies.  Finally,  we 
must  mention  Chseremon,  one  of  the  "Reading  Tragedians." ^ 
Among  the  symptoms  of  the  decline  of  tragedy  is  over-refine- 
ment and   a   striving  after   literary  effects  which   cannot   be 

^  Dionysius'  claims  to  be  considered  a  poet  may  be  judged  by  tbe  words 
be  coined.  His  epithet  for  a  maid  was  /xivavSpos,  because  a  maid  is  on 
tbe  look-out,  /xevei,  for  a  husband,  dvdpa.  Mouse-holes  were  fivcnfipia, 
since  it  is  there  that  a  moose,  fivs,  watches,  rupeC 

2 ' A.va-yvuffTi,Koi. 


2  34  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

legitimately  obtained  on  the  stage.  At  Athens  the  result  wai 
seen  in  the  composition  of  plays  not  intended  for  the  stage, 
but  for  reading.  The  disease  showed  itself  not  only  in  tragedy, 
but  in  the  dithyramb;  and  poets  whose  works  were  not  written 
to  be  acted  or  sung  by  the  dithyrambic  chorus,  but  by  their 
fineness  and  detail  were  designed  for  a  smaller  and  more 
critical  audience,  were  called  Keaders.  It  seems,  however, 
that  Chseremon  also  wrote  acting  plays.  Indeed,  he  seems  not 
to  have  confined  himself  to  any  one  kind  of  poetry,  and,  further, 
to  have  invented  a  kind  of  his  own,  for  his  Centaur,  which  was 
a  medley  of  all  kinds  of  metre,  is  sometimes  called  a  tragedy, 
sometimes  a  rhapsody,  and  sometimes  an  epic,  and  so  may  be 
inferred  to  have  comprised  features  peculiar  to  each  of  those 
forms  of  composition. 

The  forces  of  disintegration  were  at  work  on  the  drama  in 
the  time  of  Euripides,  as  we  have  seen  above.  He  felt  them 
and  recognised  them,  but  the  power  and  genius  with  which  he 
controlled  them  would  be  much  better  appreciated  if  we  only 
had  a  complete  work  of  one  of  his  successors  to  show  us  the 
contrast  between  Euripides  and  the  dramatists  who  followed 
him. 

Rhetoric  invaded  tragedy  with  more  and  more  success,  and 
culminated  in  the  work  of  Theodectes,  who  combined  the  pathos 
of  Euripides  with  the  finish  of  Isocrates.  Learning  and  philo- 
sophy replace  creative  power  and  technical  knowledge.  In- 
capacity for  the  real  work  of  tragedy  led  to  the  insertion  of 
what  was  good,  and  even  beautiful,  but  not  appropriate.  Indi- 
viduality and  distinctive  characteristics  are  wanting,  for  political 
exhaustion  was  accompanied  by  a  tendency  to  mechanical  and 
routine  work.  Because  the  strength  to  deal  with  a  tragedy  as  a 
whole  was  lacking,  attention  was  paid  more  and  more  to  detail, 
much  labour  was  bestowed  on  trivialities  of  thought  and  of  expres- 
sion, and  as  a  result  work  became  finer  but  feebler.  When 
genius  ceases,  ingenuity  begins. 


r 


CHAPTER  V. 

OOMBDT  :   ORIGIN   AND   GROWTH. 

The  Greeks  were  not  much  given  to  the  scientific  investigation 
of  the  early  history  of  institutions,  and  it  is  matter  rather  for 
regret  than  for  surprise  that  Aristotle  should  complain  that  littla 


THE  DRAMA  :    COMEDY.  2  35 

or  nothing  was  known  about  the  early  history  of  comedy.  Even 
in  his  time,  however,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  Poetics,  the 
"  invention  "  of  comedy  was  claimed  both  by  the  Athenians  and 
the  Megarians,  and  the  dispute  renders  it  still  further  necessary 
to  exercise  reserve  in  accepting  the  various  statements  on  this 
subject  made  by  ancient  authorities.  If  we  proceed  to  investi- 
gate the  growth,  and  renounce  the  investigation  of  the  "  inven- 
tion "  of  comedy,  we  shall  see  that  the  germs  of  comedy  are  of 
two  kinds,  and  that  these  germs  may  be  found  amongst  various 
members  of  the  Greek  race. 

As  tragedy  sprang  from  the  serious  side  of  the  worship  of 
Dionysus,  so  comedy  has  its  root  in  the  joyous  aspect  of  that 
ritual.  When  or  how  the  phallus  became  associated  with  the 
feasts  of  Dionysus  is  uncertain  ;  but,  at  least  in  Graeco-Italian 
times,  the  Ithyphalli  were  to  be  found  associated  with  the  wor- 
shippers of  Dionysus,  and  phallic  songs  were  amongst  the  modes 
by  which  they  expressed  the  joy  of  their  worship.  In  later 
times  this  rude  worship,  practically  dropped  by  the  inhabitants 
of  towns,  survived  only  in  the  villages — Komai — and  hence  the 
name  of  comedy.  With  regard  to  the  phallic  songs  we  know 
nothing.  Probably  they  were  sung  in  strophes  by  a  double 
chorus,  and  in  matter  and  style  were  appropriate  to  the  subject. 
As  Aristotle  says  that  comedy  was  the  creation  of  the  leaders 
of  these  phallic  choruses,  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  choruses 
were  originally  followed  by  a  monody  from  the  leader  of  the 
chorus.  This  monody  was  derisive  and  abusive  in  character, 
and  was  directed  against  any  person,  whether  unpopular  or 
merely  conspicuous,  who  was  regarded  as  a  subject  likely  to 
excite  the  laughter  of  the  crowd. 

The  other  root  of  comedy  is  to  be  found  in  the  mimetic 
dances  which  were  practised  by  many  of  the  Greeks.  These 
dances,  though  not  confined  to  the  festivals  of  Dionysus,  were 
particularly  characteristic  of  them.  The  SjDartans  developed 
these  performances  to  a  considerable  extent,  and  took  great 
delight  in  dances  representing  the  robbery  of  fruit  from  orchards 
or  meat  from  the  Syssitia,  with  the  discovery  of  the  offender 
and  his  behaviour  under  the  consequent  penalties.  These  per- 
formances were  not  always  limited  to  dumb  show,  for  the  per- 
formers 1  represented  also  foreign  quack-doctors,  and  in  this  case 
the  humour  consisted  in  the  fact  that  they  were  supposed  to 
gain  the  preference  over  native  doctors  simply  because  they 
gave  foreign  names  to  their  drugs. 

*  These  performers  were  called  in  Sparta  deiKTjXiaTol ;  in  Italy,  0Xi5a«cf  j 
in  Thebes,  idtkoyral ;  in  Sicily,  airoKd^SaXoi. 


236  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Such  were  the  germs  of  comedy  that  were  to  be  found  in 
various  parts  of  Greece.  For  their  development  two  conditions 
were  necessary.  The  first  was,  that  there  should  be  enough 
political  freedom  to  allow  the  trivial  and  personal  abuse  of  the 
Phallica  to  take  on  a  political  interest.  The  second  condition 
was,  that  the  country  worship  of  Dionysus  should  be  taken  in 
hand  and  celebrated  under  the  guidance  of  the  state.  The  first 
state  apparently  to  realise  the  former  condition  was  Megara, 
and  the  expulsion  of  the  tyrant  Theagenes  in  the  sixth  century 
was  followed  by  a  rapid  development  of  comedy.  The  monody 
of  the  leader  of  the  chorus  was  developed  into  a  dialogue  between 
the  chorus  and  its  leader,  and  eventually  this  dialogue  was 
invested  with  some  dramatic  form.  The  precise  nature  of  these 
short  farces  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain.  Their  literary  value 
cannot  have  been  great,  for  Megarian  comedy  has  left  no  traces 
of  any  literary  representative.  Maeson  of  Megara  is  said  to 
have  invented  two  masks,  that  of  a  slave  and  that  of  a  cook. 
This  indicates,  not  only  the  nature  of  the  figures  out  of  which 
the  fun  of  these  farces  was  obtained,  but  that  the  characters 
were  of  fixed  and  traditional  types. 

Although  the  Athenians  affected  to  despise  the  stupidity  of 
Megarian  farces,  Athenian  comedy  was  influenced  by  them  to 
no  small  extent  in  its  origin.  Susarion,  to  whom  the  "  inven- 
tion "  of  Attic  comedy  was  ascribed  by  the  Greeks,  was  a 
Megarian,  and  probably  transferred  to  Attic  soil  the  comedy  of 
his  native  state.  To  what  stage  of  development  Megarian 
comedy  had  attained  in  the  time  of  Susarion  is  uncertain.  The 
plays  of  Susarion  were  never  committed  to  writing,  and  there 
is  no  good  authority  for  supposing  even  that  they  were  in  verse. 
They  were  not  wholly  extempore  :  Susarion  probably  communi- 
cated beforehand  to  his  actors  the  general  outline,  and  arranged 
with  them  the  principal  situations.  The  rest  would  be  left 
mainly  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment.  The  result  would  be 
a  concatenation  of  loosely  connected  scenes  of  a  broad  and 
burlesque  description. 

The  conditions,  however,  in  Athens  at  this  time  were  not 
favourable  for  the  development  of  comedy.  The  rule  of  the 
Pisistratidje  did  not  admit  of  that  political  interest  which, 
as  the  subsequent  history  of  comedy  at  Athens  showed,  was 
necessary  to  produce  the  action  and  reaction  of  poet  and  public 
indispensable  for  the  growth  of  art.  During  this  period  of  (for 
comedy)  depression  at  Athens,  we  must  look  to  Sicily  for  the 
next  stage  of  development. 

The  Sicilians  seem  at  all  times  to  have  been  a  merry  people. 


THE  DRAMA:    COMEDY.  237 

In  later  times  even  the  grinding  weight  of  Eoraan  government 
and  the  oppressions  of  a  Verres  could  not  rob  the  light-hearted 
Sicilians  of  their  enjoyment  of,  and  capacity  for,  a  joke.  Here, 
as  elsewhere  in  Hellas,  mimetic  dances  existed,  and  the  names 
— though  little  more — of  an  immense  number  of  them  have 
come  down  to  us.  Indeed,  Theophrastus  ascribed  the  invention 
of  dancing  to  a  Sicilian.  There  was,  however,  if  the  evidence 
of  vases  is  rightly  interpreted,  existing  in  Sicily — and  par- 
ticularly at  Tarentum  in  Lower  Italy — another  source  of  comedy, 
and  that  was  the  practice  of  parodying  myths.  In  later  times 
the  actors  of  these  parodies  attained  great  celebrity,  and  were 
much  patronised  at  the  courts  of  Alexander  and  the  Diadochae. 
The  best  known  name  is  that  of  Ehinthon.  He  was  a  Tarentine 
of  the  time  of  the  first  Ptolemy,  and  composed  thirty-eight  of 
these  parodies.  Blaesus,  Sciras,  and  Sopater  also  were  famous 
for  this  kind  of  performance.^  But  it  is  supposed  that  not  only 
in  these  later  days,  but  before  the  time  of  comedy,  mythology 
was  travestied.  This  interpretation  of  the  evidence  afforded  by 
painted  vases  is,  however,  not  beyond  dispute.  If  it  is  correct, 
its  importance  is  considerable,  for  in  such  travesties  we  have 
what  is  conspicuous  by  its  absence  in  the  early  efforts  of  comedy 
— that  is,  a  real  dramatic  element. 

The  development  of  comedy  in  Sicily  was  assisted  not  only ' 
by  the  disposition  of  a  people  naturally  inclined  to  see  the  comic  I 
side  of  things,  and  by  their  dances  and  possibly  travesties  of 
myths,  but  also  by  the  existence  of  a  cultured  and  literary  court ! 
in  Syracuse. 

It  was  under  these  conditions  that  Sicilian  comedy  originated. 
The  three  comedians  of  this  island  known  to  us,  Dinolochus, 
Phormus,  and  Epicharmus,  were  probably  not  the  only  come- 
dians to  whom  Sicily  gave  birth,  but  it  is  certain  that  all  others 
were  eclipsed  by  the  last-mentioned,  Epicharmus.  Phormus, 
who  is  ranked  by  Aristotle  with  Epicharmus  for  his  services  to 
comedy,  was  tutor  to  the  children  of  Gelon,  tyrant  of  Syracuse, 
wrote  seven  comedies,  probably  mythological  travesties,  and 
contributed  some  improvements  to  the  costume  of  the  actors 
and  the  decoration  of  the  stage.  Dinolochus  is  represented  only 
by  a  few  fragments. 

Epicharmus  was  born  in  Cos  some  time  between  b.c.  540  and 
RC.  532.  When  a  few  months  old  he  was  taken  by  his  father, 
Helothales,  to  Megara  in  Sicily.  There  he  spent  most  of  hia 
youth,  and  there  the  boy  must  have  often  witnessed  the  rudi- 
mentary farces  which  the  Megarians  of  Sicily  had  brought  with 
^  Called  l\apoTpay(^Sla. 


238  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

them  from  their  mother  country.  It  is  also  extremely  probable 
that  Megara  was  the  scene  of  Epicharmus'  own  first  attempts 
at  comedy,  though  we  only  have  direct  evidence  that  he  worked 
in  Syracuse.  Some  time  before  this,  however,  he  must  have 
visited  Magna  Grsecia,  for  he  was  a  disciple  of  Pythagoras. 
Whether  he  attained  to  the  esoteric  circle  of  the  famous  pLilo- 
Bopher  or  not,  we  cannot  say,  but  the  influence  of  Pythagoras 
on  Epicharmus  was  considerable  in  extent,  and  lasting  in  its 
effects.  Pythagoras  died  probably  before  B.C.  510,  and,  there- 
fore, Epicharmus'  acquaintance  with  him  cannot  be  placed  after 
that  date.  Megara  was  destroyed  b.c.  485,  and  Epicharmus 
probably  proceeded  before  then  to  Syracuse.  There  he  worked, 
and  there  at  an  advanced  age  he  died,  probably  shortly  after 
the  death  of  Hiero,  b.c.  467. 

The  points  in  which  the  comedy  of  Epicharmus  constitutes 
an  advance  on  the  rude  farces  of  the  Megarians  are  clear  and 
of  easy  comprehension.  The  Megarian  farces  were  not  com- 
mitted to  writing.  The  comedy  of  Epicharmus  has  a  permanent 
literary  value.  It  is  not  certain,  as  already  mentioned,  that 
the  former  were  even  in  verse,  and  at  all  times  they  were  un- 
doubtedly little  more  than  improvisations.  Epicharmus,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  a  poet,  and  his  comedies  were  invested  with 
literary  form.  Megarian  comedy  was  extravagant,  and  its 
situations  were  connected  in  but  the  flimsiest  manner.  Epi- 
charmus was  possessed  of  psychological  penetration,  and  he 
endued  comedy  with  a  plot  and  imparted  unity  to  it.  Finally, 
he  did  not  confine  himself  merely  to  the  absurd  side  of  human 
nature,  but  gave  expression  to  his  reflections  on  life  in  the 
shape  of  moral  sentiments. 

Epicharmus  did  not  attain  to  these  high  results  immediately. 
His  early  efforts  were  probably  in  the  spirit  of  the  farces  which, 
as  a  boy,  he  had  witnessed  in  Sicilian  Megara,  and  to  this 
period  must  be  assigned  many  of  his  parodies  on  mythology. 
Hephaestus  is  a  comic  figure  even  in  Homer,  and  the  Comastcs 
or  Ilephcestus  of  Epicharmus  probably  developed  the  comic 
side  of  the  limping  god's  character  to  an  extravagant  extent. 
So,  too,  the  adventures  of  Heracles  with  Pholus,  which  included 
much  drinking  on  the  part  of  Heracles,  and  much  fighting  on 
the  part  of  everybody,  seem  to  show  that  the  Heracles  with 
Pholus  was  distinguished  rather  by  humour  of  a  rough-and- 
ready  description  than  by  character-drawing  or  artistic  plot 
In  this  rude  stage  of  comedy,  however,  Epicharmus  was  not 
destined  to  remain  long.  His  poetical  instinct,  his  powers  of 
observation,  and  his  aesthetic  feelings,  urged  him  to  work  of  a 


THE  drama:  comedy.  239 

more  refined  kind,  and  his  removal  from  Megara  to  Syracuse 
must  have  contributed  to  this  result.  The  action  of  Syracuse 
on  Epicharmus  was  twofold.  It  gave  him  a  better  public,  and 
it  introduced  him  to  the  literary  circle  of  the  court  of  Syracuse. 
The  large  population  of  this  wealthy  city  probably  possessed 
at  this  time  the  same  generous  appreciation  for  genius  as  it  did 
in  the  time  of  Euripides.  The  literary  circle  of  the  court 
embraced  all  the  most  cultured  men   of   Syracuse,  as  it  also  ^ 

comprised  all  other  Greeks  of  distinction  whom  Hiero  could 
attract  to  Sicily.  Under  these  favouring  conditions  Epicharmus 
proceeded  to  those  comedies  of  character  in  which  his  real 
strength  lay.  All  that  was  refined  in  his  work,  careful  in  its 
finish,  and  witty  in  conception  and  expression,  was  developed. 
But  although  studies  of  character,  which,  as  the  names  of  the 
plays  indicate,  were  contained  in  his  Boor^  or  his  Megarian 
Woman,  necessarily  fall  within  Epicharmus'  later  and  Syracusan 
period,  when  his  observations  of  life  had  borne  fruit,  still  they 
do  not  complete  the  sum  of  his  activity  at  this  period.  Mytho- 
logical travesties  also  give  scope  for  artistic  work.  The  figures 
in  such  plays  are  indeed  gods,  but  their  absurdities  are  those  of 
men.  In  the  heroes  and  gods  of  these  parodies  were  parodied 
the  Sicilians  of  Epicharmus'  own  time.  This  is  obvious  in  the 
case  of  his  play  Hebe's  Wedding  (reproduced  under  the  title  of 
The  Muses).  The  great  and  general  wealth  which  under  Gelo 
and  Hiero  rapidly  spread  among  the  Syracusans  was  not  em- 
ployed by  them  always  in  the  best  of  directions,  and  the 
wealthy  classes  seem  to  have  been  particularly  subject  to 
gluttony.  In  Hebe's  Wedding  the  central  fact  of  the  piece  is 
the  wedding-feast,  and  this  is  portrayed  from  all  points  of 
view  as  something  which  even  the  Syracusans  must  have 
allowed  to  be  excessive.  Naturally  the  bridegroom,  Heracles, 
whose  appetite  was  admitted  in  sober  mythology,  performed 
■wonderful  feats  in  the  consumption  of  food.  The  Muses  were 
brought  on  to  the  stage  to  subserve  the  leading  idea  of  the 
piece.  But  the  spectators,  who  were  prepared  to  see  the  young 
and  beauteous  nymphs  of  Pimpleia  and  Pieria,-  must  have  been 
overcome  with  amazement  and  amusement  when  they  saw  them 
appear  as  sturdy  fishwives,  bearing  as  their  contributions  to  the 
feast  innumerable  fishes  much  prized  by  Syracusan  gourmands. 
After  this,  the  audience  would  not  be  surprised  at  witnessing 

*  'AypuarTvos  =  Attic  dypoiKos. 

2  In  forms  suggesting  the  notions  conveyed  by  the  words  vluv  and  irlu 
v\rj/it.  rathei  than  Pieria  and  Pimpleia. 


/ 


240         HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Athene  playing  tlie  flute  and  the  Dioscuri  executing  a  jxxs  ds 
devx  of  a  comic  character. 

This  sketch  of  Rebels  Wedding  may  enable  us  to  comprehend 
the  nature  of  Sicilian  comedy  as  represented  by  Epicharmus. 
The  introduction  of  the  Dioscuri  and  Athene  was  episodic  in 
character,  and  could  have  no  strict  connection  with  the  plot. 
Like  all  other  ancient  comedy — indeed,  like  ancient  tragedy — 
Sicilian  comedy  did  not  rely  on  the  intrigues  of  a  complicated 
plot,  but  contained  one  sinrple  leading  idea,  round  which  vari- 
ous episodes  and  comic  situations  were  grouped.  The  drama, 
the  latest  form  of  poetry  to  arise,  was  the  longest  to  develop, 
and  it  is  only  in  modern  times  that  the  plot,  both  in  comedy 
and  tragedy,  has  come  to  be  the  leading  feature  of  a  play. 
Further,  Sicilian  comedy  was  essentially  burlesque,  and  Hebe's 
Wedding  surprises  us  by  its  resemblance  to  modern  burlesques 
on  ancient  mythology.  But  this  was  no  peculiarity  of  Epi- 
charmus ;  it  is  equally  distinctive  of  Aristophanes  and  of  the 
old  Attic  comedy  in  general.  It  was  only  in  the  course  of 
time  and  of  development  that  the  burlesque  character  of  old 
comedy  was  toned  down  to  comedy  in  the  modern  sense.  It 
may  appear  from  this  criticism  that  Epicharmus,  after  all,  did 
not  rise  very  much  above  the  Megarian  farces.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  very  same  incidents  and  situations  will 
serve  to  form  merely  a  rude  farce  or  a  comedy  of  higher  merits, 
according  as  they  are  or  are  not  adequately  motived  and  artisti- 
cally woven  together.  The  unity  of  a  comedy  of  Epicharmus 
may  be  inferior  to  that  of  a  comedy  of  Shakespeare,  and  yet 
may  have  been  infinitely  above  that  of  Dorian  comedy. 

In  the  next  place,  Hebe's  Wedding  may  help  us  to  understand 
the  strength  of  Epicharmian  comedy.  Its  strength  was  the  de- 
lineation of  character.  It  is  necessary,  however,  to  premise 
that  what,  in  this  respect,  holds  good  of  Greek  tragedy  also 
holds  good  of  Greek  comedy.  A  character  in  Shakespeare  iai " 
drawn  not  only  with  that  truth  to  human  nature  which  makes! 
the  picture  the  possession  of  all  time ;  it  is  not  only  idealised, ' 
but  it  is  individual  and  real  as  well  as  ideal,  inasmuch  as  it  is 
not  a  servile  imitation,  but  an  artistic  representation  of  real' 
life.  To  this  combination  of  the  real  and  the  ideal  ancient — 
dramatists  were  forbidden,  by  the  early  place  they  held  in  the 
history  of  the  drama,  to  attain.  Epicharmus  selects  some  folly 
or  failing  of  human  nature,  and  concentrates  all  the  expression 
of  that  folly  or  failure  in  some  one  character.  Such  concentra- 
tion does  not,  of  course,  occur  in  real  life,  and,  therefore,  when 
presented  in  comedy,  is  the  result  of  comic  idealisation.     A 


THE  drama:  comedy.  241 

character  of  this  kind  is  a  type,  and  is  not  individual.  As  this 
is  the  nature  of  Epicharmus'  character-drawing,  it  is  obvious 
how  suited  to  his  purposes  a  mythological  travesty  might  be. 
Thus,  Heracles  as  a  god  was  capable  of  an  amount  of  gluttony 
which  no  Syracusan  could  hope  to  attain,  and  the  traditional 
attributes  of  Heracles  were  such  as  this  gluttony  would  not 
be  out  of  harmony  with,  whereas  the  exaggeration  would  have 
been  intolerable  in  the  case  of  any  human  character. 

If  we  now  proceed  to  compare  the  comedy  of  Epicharmus  with 
that  of  Aristophanes,  the  first  and  most  obvious  difference  is  that 
of  range.  Everything  which  had  an  interest  for  the  citizens  of 
a  free  state  was  material  for  Aristophanes,  whereas  Epicharmus 
was  by  his  position  excluded  from  politics.^  Thus  Epicharmus 
in  his  highest  work  was  limited  to  the  reproduction  of  Sici- 
lian character  and  life.  His  characters  are  types  of  follies  and 
faults.  In  Aristophanes,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  not  types 
of  character,  but  thejpersonification  of  movements  and  of  forces — 
a  Socrates  and  a  Demos.  Aristophanes  is  distinguished  by  the 
boldness  of  reckless  genius,  Epicharmus  by  more  minute  work 
and  psychological  study.  In  Aristophanes  we  have  nothing 
but  what  is  essentially  the  negative  side  of  comedy — ridicule. 
In  Epicharmus  we  have  much  that  is  of  a  practical  moral 
value.  Aristophanes  does  his  best  poetical  work  in  his  lyrics. 
Epicharmus  had  no  chorus — he  certainly  had  no  chorus  in  the 
Greek  sense  ;  no  fragment  of  any  choral  ode  from  any  comedy 
of  his  has  come  down  to  us.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  probable 
that  there  was  a  chorus  in  such  a  play  as  Hebe's  Wedding — a 
chorus,  that  is,  resembling  much  more  that  of  a  modern  comic 
opera  than  that  of  a  Greek  play.  Such  a  chorus  would  be 
required  for  the  wedding-song  in  Hebe's  Wedding,  for  the  revel 
in  the  Heplicestus  or  Comastoe,  for  the  triumphal  song  in  Amycus, 
and  in  all  these  cases,  as,  too,  in  the  Choreuontes,  such  a  chorus 
would  naturally  dance.  But  there  are  no  traces  that  the 
chorus  ever  took  part  in  the  dialogue  of  any  of  Epicharmus' 
comedies. 

This  characteristic  absence  of  a  chorus,  in  the  technical  sense, 
from  Sicilian  comedy  seems  to  show  that  the  connection  of  the 
drama  with  Dionysus  was  not  so  strongly  felt  in  Sicily  as  in 
Athens.  The  presence  of  the  chorus  in  Attic  drama  would,  in 
the  absence  of  all  other  evidence,  be  enough  to  show  the  origin 
of  the  drama.     Alongside  of  this  absence  of  a  chorus  from 

1  It  is  true  that  it  has  been  imagined  that  Epicharmus  wrote  politics  in 
Bome  of  his  comedies,  but  this  is  based  only  on  a  fragment  of  four  words, 
the  titles  merely  of  two  plays,  and  an  iusufScient  remark  of  a  Bcholiast. 


242  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Sicilian  comedy  we  may  place  our  ignorance  of  the  occasions 
on  which,  and  the  persons  by  whom,  plays  were  performed  at 
Syracuse.  As  we  do  not  know  at  what,  if  any,  festivals  they 
were  produced,  nor  whether  they  were,  as  at  Athens,  under  the 
direct  and  avowed  control  of  the  state,  and  as  we  do  know  that 
the  mimetic  dances,  to  which  comedy  was  at  least  in  part  due, 
were  by  no  means  confined  to,  or  distinctive  of,  the  festivals  of 
Dionysus,  it  is  merely  conjecture — supported,  indeed,  by  the 
analogy  of  Attic  drama — that  Sicilian  comedy  is  derived  from 
the  Dionysia.  It  is  probable  that  more  than  three  actors  were 
required,  but  how  many  pieces  were  produced  at  a  time,  how 
many  poets  competed,  or,  indeed,  whether  there  was  any  com- 
petition between  the  poets,  are  all  points  on  which  we  have 
no  information.  The  Syracusans  must,  however,  have  learned 
much  from  ^schylus,  who,  having  done  so  much  for  the 
theatre  and  in  the  way  of  stage-management  at  Athens,  would 
probably  be  helpful  also  to  the  Syracusan  stage. 

As  for  the  influence  of  Epicharmus  on  his  successors,  it  is 
probable  that  before  Old  Comedy  definitely  and  finally  assumed 
a  political  cast,  some  of  the  older  poets — Crates  is  especially 
mentioned — were  influenced  by  Epicharmus.  In  the  case  of 
the  Middle  and  New  Comedy,  the  traces  of  his  influence  are 
clear.  He  was  the  inventor  of  many  types  of  character  which 
persisted  in  later  Attic  Comedy.  Thus  the  drunkard,  the 
gourmand,  the  gourmet,  and  above  all  the  parasite,  are  all 
types  which,  by  their  persistence,  testify  to  the  influence  of 
Epicharmus. 

Here  we  must  say  something  of  Sophron,  if  it  is  only  to  state 
that  we  know  little,  almost  nothing,  about  him.  He  was  a 
Syracusan  who  lived  about  b.c.  420.  He  composed  Mimes, 
which  were  introduced  into  Athens  by  Plato.  He  did  not 
invent  Mimes,  but  he  first  gave  them  a  place  in  literature,  and 
his  literary  powers  must  have  been  considerable,  for  Plato  is 
said  to  have  slept  with  the  works  of  Sophron  by  his  pillow, 
and  to  have  been  influenced  by  them  in  the  composition  of  his 
.Dialogues.  This  seems  to  be  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  Sophron 
composed  in  prose  ;  that  Aristotle  classed  the  Dialogues  of  Plato 
and  the  Mimes  of  Sophron  as  belonging  to  the  same  form  of 
art ;  and  that  there  are  traces  in  Plato's  language  of  Syracusan 
idioms  and  expressions.  Beyond  this,  we  have  no  information 
about  Sophron,  and  can  only  endeavour  to  form  some  idea  of 
his  work  from  the  Adoniazusce  of  Theocritus,  which  is  a  repro- 
duction in  hexameter  of  one  of  the  Mimes.  Before  the  time  of 
Sophron,  it  would  seem  that  Mimes  were  not  literary  works,  but 


THE  DRAMA  :  THE  OLD  COMEDY.         243 

improvisations.  The  Adoniazusoe  points  to  the  lower  orders  aa 
the  classes  from  which  Sophron  drew  his  characters.  But  the 
precise  nature  of  his  Mimes  and  the  mode  of  their  perform- 
ance are  uncertain.  "  The  Mime  at  first  differed  from  other 
kinds  of  comedy — (i)  in  having  no  proper  plot;  (2)  in  not 
being  represented  primarily  on  the  stage  ;  (3)  in  having  but 
one  actor."  1  Perhaps,  therefore,  we  may  conjecture,  from 
Aristotle's  comparison  of  Sophron  and  Plato,  that  Sophron 
recited  the  whole  of  one  of  his  Mimes,  with  appropriate  change 
of  voice,  expression,  and  gesture  for  each  of  the  characters, 
interweaving  with  their  speeches  so  much  of  narrative  or  ex- 
planation as  was  necessary  in  his  own  voice  and  character.  For 
an  entertainment  of  this  kind — not  uncommon  at  the  present 
day — a  stage  would  not  be  absolutely  necessary,  and  this  would 
accord  with  the  indications  that  Sophron  gave  his  entertain- 
ments on  the  occasion  of  public  festivals,  irrespective  of  the 
theatre  and  theatrical  performances. 


CHAPTEE   VL 

THB  OLD  COMEDY. 

Attic  Comedy  falls  into  three  divisions,  the  Old,  the  Middle, 
and  the  New.  The  Old  Comedy,  whose  limits  may  roughly  be 
considered  to  be  B.C.  460-390,  was  a  public  and  a  political 
institution.  The  choregus  was  appointed  by  the  state  ;  the 
choregia  was  a  public  duty ;  and  the  comedian  who  obtained  a 
choregus  from  the  state  thereby  and  so  far  obtained  the  state 
sanction  for  his  satire.  Although  the  Old  Comedy  ridiculed 
every  institution  and  everything  out  of  which  a  laugh  could  be 
raised,  it  was  above  all  personal.  Laws  to  restrain  this  per- 
sonal abuse  were  made  at  various  times,  in  B.C.  440  and  B.o. 
416,  and  it  is  probable  that  in  B.C.  412  and  b.o.  405,  when  the 
democracy  was  gagged,  comedy  was  gagged  also  ;  but  it  was 
only  when  comedy  ceased  to  be  a  state  institution  that  it 
ceased  to  be  personal,  and  it  was  only  when  Athens  lost  her 
proud  consciousness  of  political  independence  that  comedy 
ceased  to  be  supported  by  state  authority.  From  B.C.  390  to 
B.C.  320,  the  Middle  Comedy,  in  which  the  chorus  disappears, 
relied  for  its  humour  on  its  representation  of  social  life  and  ita 

^  Cruttwell's  History  of  Roman  Literature,  p.  23^ 


244  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

caricatures  of  philosophy  and  literature.  Finally,  from  b.g  320 
to  B.C.  250  we  have  the  New  Comedy,  which  is  the  comet^y  of 
character  and  manners. 

Between  the  time  of  Susarion  and  the  period  in  which 
comedy  became  a  state  institution  at  Athens,  there  fall  the 
names  of  some  Attic  comedians  of  whom  we  practically  know 
nothing.  Euetes,  whose  very  existence  is  doubtful,  and  Euexe- 
nides  are  mentioned  only  by  Suidas.  Myllus  figures  in  a  pro- 
verb,^ which  has  given  rise  to  various  attempted  explanations, 
none  satisfactory.  Chionides  wrote  a  Persians  in  imitation  of  a 
play  of  the  same  name  by  Epicharmus.  We  have  now  reached 
a  time  when  Athens,  having  recovered  from  the  danger  and  tho 
losses  of  the  Persian  wars,  was  reaping  the  fruit  of  her  disin- 
terested action  in  those  wars.  The  powers,  of  which  she  had 
become  conscious  then,  she  was  now  putting  forth  in  all  direc* 
tions,  and  her  political,  social,  and  aesthetic  life  was  showing  in 
all  fields  of  action  the  quickening  it  had  received  in  the  great 
struggle  with  the  Persian.  It  is  at  this  time,  about  B.C.  460, 
that  we  find  INIagnes  flourishing,  the  first  comedian  known  to 
us  as  having  won  a  prize  in  a  dramatic  contest.  He  is  said  to 
have  won  the  comic  prize  eleven  times,  but  to  have  lost  his 
popularity  in  his  old  age.  Magnes  is  an  interesting  figure  in 
comedy,  for  in  him  we  have  a  link  between  the  mimetic  dances 
(which,  as  we  saw  in  the  last  chapter,  formed  one  of  the  sources 
of  comedy)  and  Aristophanes.  One  favourite  form  of  dance 
consisted  in  the  imitation  of  all  sorts  of  animals,  and  in  this 
dance  we  must  see  the  direct  ancestor  of  the  Birds  and  the 
Frogs  of  Magnes;  while  these  again  rob  Aristophanes  of  the 
credit  of  originality,  so  far  as  the  idea  of  making  a  chorus  of 
birds  or  other  creatures  is  concerned.  Indeed,  these  comedies 
of  Magnes  had  many  descendants,  such  as  the  Goats  of  Eupolis, 
the  Fishes  of  Archippus,  the  Snalies  of  Menippus,  the  Nigldin- 
gales  of  Cantharus,  the  Aids  of  Plato,  &c.  These  plays  are 
lost,  and  Aristophanes  is  left  solitary  and  lofty ;  whether  his 
height  would  be  to  us  the  same  could  his  former  rivals  be  now 
seen  by  his  side,  is  an  insoluble  problem  ;  but  at  any  rate,  in  a 
history  of  comedy  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  in  the  organic 
development  of  literature,  phenomena  which  to  our  fragmentary 
knowledge  appear  isolated  were  never  actually  solitary,  but 
were  always  connected  in  an  unbroken  line  with  what  preceded 
them.  Passing  over  Ecphantides,  the  "  cloudy,"  ^  we  find  in 
Crates  anotlier  link  which  might  easily  have  been  lost  in  tho 
chain  of  deYelojtment  leading  up  to  Aristophanes.     The  con- 

'  MyXXos  irdvT  aKovti.  ^  Kairylas. 


THE  DRAMA  :  THE  OLD  COMEDY.         245 

trast  which  in  the  Clouds  of  Aristophanes  the  Just  and  tha 
Unjust  Reason  are  made  to  draw  between  the  actual  and  the 
old-fashioned  mode  of  life,  seems  to  have  been  anticipated  in 
the  Beasts  of  Crates.  This  piece  is  further  interesting  as  con- 
taining a  very  early  plea  for  vegetarianism.  The  beasts  who 
formed  the  chorus  urged  on  man  that  he  should  give  up  meat ; 
and  we  still  have  a  fragment  of  the  play  in  which  one  character 
expresses  comic  dismay  at  the  idea  of  giving  up  the  sausages  so 
dear  to  heroes  of  Aristophanic  comedy.  Crates  also  produced 
the  earliest  preserved  specimen  of  nonsense  verses — verses,  that 
is,  which  are  strung  together  with  the  intention  of  producing 
only  the  semblance  of  sense.  More  serious  services,  however, 
than  these  were  rendered  to  comedy  by  Crates,  according  to 
Aristotle.  True  to  the  tradition  of  its  origin,  comedy  hitherto 
at  Athens  seems  to  have  consisted  mainly  of  that  personal 
abuse  which  was  characteristic  of  the  country  Phallica.  Crates 
not  only  abandoned  this,  but  is  ranked  by  Aristotle  along  with 
Epicharmus,  and  is  credited  with  having  first  produced  in  Attica 
comedies  with  a  claim  to  real  dramatic  action.  His  subjects, 
whether  taken  from  his  own  imagination  or  from  real  life,  were 
transmuted  by  the  poet's  power  into  plays  possessing  general, 
natural,  and  necessary  truth,  and  were  no  longer  bald  reproduc- 
tions of  events  which  did  happen,  or  might  at  least  have  hap- 
pened, but  would  not  strike  one  as  probable  in  themselves. 
Not  only  was  the  line  followed  by  Crates  analogous  to  that  of 
Epicharmus,  but  in  some  instances  he  directly  borrowed  from 
the  Sicilian  comedian.  Thus  the  character  of  the  drunkard 
was  transferred  by  Crates  from  the  comedy  of  Epicharmus  to 
the  Athenian  stage.  His  style  was  elegant  and  simple,  and  if, 
as  Aristophanes  alleges,  his  plays  were  somewhat  thin,  they 
were  ensured  success  at  Athens  by  their  fertility  in  ingenious 
thoughts. 

About  the  same  time  as  Crates  lived  Cratinus,  though 
whether  Cratinus  is  to  be  considered  as  a  predecessor  or  as  a 
successor  of  Crates  is  a  point  on  which  our  evidence  scarcely 
allows  us  to  decide.  It  may,  however,  be  asserted  with  some 
certainty  that  the  services  of  Cratinus  to  Attic  comedy  were  of 
a  much  more  decided  and  effective  character  than  those  of  Crates. 
The  boisterous  and  reckless  tendencies  of  Attic  comedy  found 
a  faithful  exponent  in  Cra'dnus.  Aristophanes,  in  the  parabasis 
of  the  Knights,  tells  us  on  the  best  authority — for  we  still  have 
extant  Cratinus'  own  words  for  it — that  the  torrent  of  Cratinus' 
words  was  so  impetuous  as  to  bear  down  everything  before  it. 
His  audacity  of  attack  was  considered  by  the  ancients  to  exceed 


246  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

even  that  of  Aristophanes  himself.  He  earned  the  title  of 
"the  people's  lash,"  and  he  certainly  applied  the  lish  aU  round. 
Few  things  or  men  seem  to  have  escaped  him,  Pericles  he 
pelted  with  abusive  epithets  unsparingly ;  and  he  seems  to 
have  been  never  weary  of  jesting  at  the  peculiarly-shaped  head 
of  the  Zeus  of  Athens.  That  there  was  some  reason  for  this 
seems  shown  by  the  fact  that  artists  found  it  uniformly  neces- 
sary to  provide  the  statues  of  Pericles  with  a  helmet  to  relieve 
the  fault  of  nature.  Personalities  and  politics  do  not  exhaust 
the  subjects  of  Cratinus'  comedies.  Philosophy  is  derided  in  the 
Tarantini  and  elsewhere.  In  his  Thracian  Women  he  attacks 
the  worship  of  Bendis,  which  seems  to  have  been  then  establish- 
ing itself  in  Athens.  In  his  Kleohulince  he  ridicules  the  fashion, 
to  which  Athenian  ladies  were  then  devoted,  of  composing 
riddles.  Innovations  in  music  were  met  with  conservative  deri- 
sion in  the  Eunidce.  The  Nomoi  demonstrated  the  superiority 
of  the  old-fashioned  ignorance  of  reading  and  writing  to  the  new- 
fangled education  in  such  unnecessary  acquirements,  and  the  Solon 
exalted  tlie  good  old  times  as  compared  with  modern  degeneracy. 
In  all  these  sallies,  the  humour  must  have  had  a  great  deal  that 
was  good-natured ;  for  so  impartial  is  Cratinus  in  the  objects 
of  his  comedies,  that  he  does  not  even  exempt  himself.  His 
affection  for  wine  pointed  the  jokes  of  many  contemporary 
comedians.^  Cratinus  went  farther,  and  made  his  own  failing 
the  subject  of  a  comedy,  the  Flash.  When  Aristophanes  in 
the  Knights  treated  him  as  a  played-out  old  man,  Cratinus 
waited  for  the  year  to  come  round,  and  then  at  the  next  contest 
of  comedians  defeated  a  piece  of  Aristophanes'  with  the  Flask. 
In  this  comedy  Cratinus  represents  himself  as  wedded  to 
Comoedia,  but  unfortunately  yielding  to  the  charms  of  Methe. 
Consequently  his  lawful  wife  proceeds  to  institute  an  action 
for  divorce  and  cruelty. ^  Mutual  friends  do  their  best  to  dis- 
suade Comoedia  from  this  course,  but  she  persists.  Eventually 
Cratinus  abandons  his  mistress,  and  devotes  himself  entirely  to 
Comedy. 

In  addition  to  these  plays,  which  are  in  the  true  spirit  of  the 
Old  Comedy,  Cratinus  wrote,  probably  during  the  action  of  one 
ot  the  gagging  laws,^  mythological  travesties  after  the  fashion 
of  Epicharmus.  In  the  face  of  the  statement  of  Aristotle  that 
it  was  unknown  who  determined  the  number  of  actors  in 
comedy,  it  will  not  do  to  accept  the  assertion  that  Cratinus 

^  To  one  of  these  must  be  attributed  the  statement — generally  accepted 
■eriously^that  Cratiuua  belonged  t^s  Olvrjldos  (pvXiji. 

*  KaK(l)cews.  ^  M^  KUfUfdeiv  6vop.aaTL 


THE  DRAMA  :  THE  OLD  COMEDY.         247 

rendered  this  service.  In  Cratinus  we  may  see  the  iEschylus 
of  comedy ;  but  it  is  in  the  force  of  the  impression  which  the 
personality  of  Cratinus  made  on  comedy  that  we  must  seek  to 
justify  the  comparison.  Both  poets  possessed  the  audacity  of 
genius,  and  in  each  case  the  boldness  of  the  man  revealed  itself 
in  both  conception  and  expression.  About  the  justice  of  the 
criticism  that  Cratinus  was  happier  in  the  conception  than  in 
the  carrying  out  of  his  plots,  the  fragments  that  are  left  do  not 
enable  us  to  judge.  The  purity  and  "  Atticity "  of  his  style, 
however,  are  shown  by  his  fragments,  and  by  the  fact  that 
Aristophanes  did  not  disdain  to  borrow  verses  occasionally  from 
him. 

Although  the  Old  Comedy  is,  on  the  whole,  characterised  by 
the  fact  that  it  based  itself  on  the  amusement  which  was  to  be 
made  out  of  contemporary  events,  still  there  was  always  present 
a  tendency  to  mythological  travesties,  which  did  not  depend  for 
their  success  on  local  or  political  allusions.  Sometimes  this 
latter  tendency  received  external  aid,  as  when  personalities  were 
forbidden  by  law ;  but  at  other  times  the  genius  of  a  comedian 
of  itself  turned  him  rather  to  the  parody  of  myths  than  to  the 
ridicule  of  the  present.  Of  such  a  comedian  we  have  an  instance 
in  Pherecrates.  A  contemporary  and  rival  of  Cratinus  and 
Crates,  he  is  said  to  have  started  life  as  one  of  Crates'  actors. 
If  this  be  true,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  Pherecrates  fol- 
lowed in  the  steps  of  Crates,  who  himself,  as  we  have  seen, 
followed  at  Athens  the  line  of  direction  originally  traced  by 
Epicharmus  at  Syracuse.  Gluttony,  which  aflforded  so  much 
material  for  Epicharmus,  was  utilised  as  subject-matter  by 
Pherecrates  in  his  Good  Men.  Fixed  types  of  character,  such 
as  the  parasite  in  the  Thalatta,  or  the  hetaira  in  the  Corianno 
or  the  Fetala,  or  pictures  from  low  life,  such  as  occurred  in  his 
Fannychis,  at  once  show  that  his  literary  ancestor  is  Epichar- 
mus, and  demonstrate  that  the  ]\Iiddle  and  New  Comedy  were 
no  sudden,  or  even  new  departure,  but  simply  the  persistence  of 
a  type  of  comedy  which  had  always  existed,  and  which,  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  only  needed  the  extinction  of  its  formid- 
able competitor  in  order  to  reach  its  full  development.  It  must 
not,  however,  be  imagined  that  Pherecrates  cultivated  nothing 
but  the  Epicharmian  tendency  in  comedy.  As  Cratinus  at 
times  turned  to  the  travesty  of  myths,  so  Pherecrates  occasion- 
ally made  attacks,  as  on  Alcibiades,  of  a  political  nature,  or,  as 
on  Melanthius,  of  a  literary  kind.  Nor  is  it  merely  as  a  prede- 
cessor of  the  New  Comedy  that  he  must  be  regarded,  for  Aris- 
tophanes owes  something  to  him.     Pherecrates  was  credited  is 


248  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

antiquity  with  much  originality  and  power  of  invention,  ana 
although  it  is  little  more  than  conjecture  that  the  Tyrannis  had 
for  its  subject  the  rule  of  woman,  and,  therefore,  so  far  anti- 
cipated Aristophanes,  it  is  certain  that  the  idea  of  laying  the 
scene  of  a  comedy  in  the  nether  world,  as  in  the  Frogs,  did  not 
originate  with  Aristophanes,  but  must  be  placed  to  the  credit  of 
Pherecrates.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  this  play — the 
Crapatali — iEschylus  is  brought  on  the  stage,  and  is  drawn 
with  the  same  touches  as  is  the  character  in  the  Frogs.  Indeed, 
from  the  fragment  of  a  speech  of  ^schylus,^  it  would  appear 
that  in  the  Crapatali,  as  well  as  in  the  Frogs,  the  merits  of 
^schylus  as  a  poet  were  in  question. 

Teleclides  seems  to  have  been  a  political  partisan,  who  sup- 
ported Nicias,  and  was  joined  by  another  comedian,  Hermippus, 
in  virulent  attacks  on  Pericles.  Hermippus  availed  himself 
particularly  of  the  feeling  in  Athens  at  the  time  of  the  first 
Peloponnesian  invasion  to  abuse  Pericles  for  not  risking  an  en- 
gagement with  the  enemy.  Pericles,  however,  has  been  treated 
with  more  kindness  by  fortune  than  Cleon,  for  the  attacks 
upon  Pericles  have  perished,  whereas  those  of  Aristophanes  on 
Cleon  remain.  Pericles  was  not  the  only  victim  of  Hermippus ; 
Hyperbolus  and  Hyperbolus'  mother  were  also  favourite  sub- 
jects for  abuse,  which,  perhaps,  had  as  little  truth  in  it  as  Aris- 
tophanes' slanders  with  regard  to  Euripides'  mother.  In  Her- 
mippus, again,  we  find  the  two  tendencies  of  the  Old  Comedy 
struggling  with  each  other.  He  was  not  entirely  devoted  to 
political  comedy,  but,  in  his  Birth  of  Athene,  he  set  the  example 
of  a  species  of  mythological  travesty  which  found  frequent 
imitators  among  the  poets  of  the  Middle  Comedy.  About 
Myrtilus,  the  brother  of  Hermippus,  and  about  Alcimenes  we 
know  nothing.  Philonides  was  the  friend  and  senior  of  Aristo- 
phanes, whose  Banquete7's  Philonides  brought  out,  possibly 
because  Aristophanes  was  not  of  the  age  required  by  law  in  a 
comic  poet. 2  Philonides  also  brought  out  tlie  F^'ogs  on  behalf 
of  Aristophanes.  "With  regard  to  the  writings  of  Philonides 
himself  we  can  say  little.  His  Cothurni  or  Turncoats  may 
have  been  written  about  the  time  when  Theramenes  earned  the 
epithet  of  Cothurnus,  though  it  is  going  beyond  our  evidence 
to  imagine  any  causal  connection  between  the  two  events. 

In  antiquity,  Eupolis,  Cratinus,  and  Aristophanes  were  re- 
garded as  forming  a  triad  among  comedians  comparable  to 
^schylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  among  tragedians.     The 

^  "OcTis  7'  aiiTOiS  vapiSuKO.  rix^V"  /ifyd\i]v  i^oiKoSofi-f/aas. 
'  But  see  below,  chap.  viL 


THE  DRAMA  :  THE  OLD  COMEDY,         249 

first  comedy  of  Eupolis  was  produced  upon  the  stage  in  ac. 
429,  and  it  is  said  that  he  was  at  the  time  a  mere  boy  of  seTeii- 
teen.     The  date  and  manner  of  his  death,  which  have  been  the 
subject  of  various  absurd  and  impossible   stories,   cannot   be 
decided ;  all  that  can  be  said  is  that  he  was  not  dead  in  B.C. 
412.     His  relations  with  Aristophanes  were  originally  of   an 
intimate  kind,  but  eventually  such  as  led  to  recrimination,  and 
our  knowledge  with  regard  to  them  is  derived  mainly  from  tlie 
mutual  abuse  of  the  two  comedians.     That  lines  1288-1312  of 
the  Knights  of  Aristophanes  are  the  work  of  Eupolis  was  the 
universal  opinion  of  antiquity,  and  seems  to  be  based  on  unim- 
peachable   tradition.     Whether,   however,   this  was  a  case  of 
literary  piracy  is  another  question.     Cratinus  in  his  Flask  had 
no  hesitation  in  accusing  Aristophanes  of  literary  theft.     It  is, 
however,  safer  to  take  Eupolis'  own  statement  in  the  Baptce,^ 
from  which  it  would  seem  that  Eupolis  collaborated  with  Aris- 
tophanes in  the  production  of  the  Knights.     The  attempts  to 
trace  Eupolis'  hand  or  suggestions  elsewhere  in  the  play  are  not 
satisfactory,  and  perhaps  we  may  be  content  to  believe   that 
Eupolis'  claim  was  excessive,  and  that  Aristophanes'  acknow- 
ledgment of  his  real  debt  was  insufficient.     In  this  episode  in 
the  lives  of  Eupolis  and  Aristophanes  we  may,  perhaps,   see 
traces  of  the  existence  of  a  literary  clique  formed  by  these  two 
poets  and  other  young  comedians  for  the  purpose  of  driving 
the  older  authors  from  the  comic  stage.     Political  clubs  were 
frequent  in  Athens,  and  a  literary  "  hetseria '"  is  not  impossible 
to  conceive,  although  the  evidence  for  its  existence  is,  it  must 
be  confessed,  not  particularly  strong.     Turning  to  the  merits  of 
Eupolis  as  a  comedian,  we  find  that,  although  he  was  as  violent 
in  his  expressions  of  attack  and  abuse  as  was  his  great  prede- 
cessor Cratinus,  he  yet  managed  to  carry  it  off  with  a  grace 
peculiarly  his  own.     His  flights  of  imagination  were  lofty  and 
daring,  and  his  genius  was  at  once  artistic  and  inventive.     The 
vein  of  personal  abuse  was  strong  in  him  :  Cleon  and  Alcibiades, 
politicians,  profligates,  and  philosophers,  were  visited  with  im 
partiality.    Socrates  was  the  object  of  a  personal  bitterness  such 
as  can   scarcely  be  discovered  in  Aristophanes,   and   Socrates' 
chief  offence,  according  to  Eupolis,  was  his  poverty.     It  is  per- 
haps in  consequence  of,  certainly  in  accordance  with,  this  Archi- 
lochian  vein  that  Eupolis  produced  no  mythological  travesties. 
"With  the  exception  of  his  Caproe,  which,  as  far  as  we  know, 
was  not  of  a  distinctively  political  tendency,  aU  his  comedies 

^  Kdicefi/ous  Toii%  'IirWas  aweKoi-qaa  r^  <paKaKp(^  Trpotna  Kdduprjffd/ivy, 


2  50        HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

were  probably  concerned  with  events  of  the  day.  In  his  frag, 
ments,  as  in  the  fraj^ments  of  a  shattered  mirror,  we  may  see 
reflected  imperfectly  the  history  of  his  time,  and  that  is  largely 
the  history  of  the  Peloponnesian  war.  As  in  Euripides  and 
Sophocles,  the  Spartans,  when  introduced  in  a  tragedy,  are 
made  to  play  invidious  parts,  so  in  the  Helots  of  Eupolis  we 
may  be  sure  tJiat  that  institution,  the  most  dangerous  to  Sparta 
of  all  Spartan  institutions,  was  not  represented  under  its  most 
favourable  light.  In  the  Taxiarchi,  Athens'  naval  hero,  Phor- 
mio,  was  introduced  upon  the  stage.  At  the  time  of  thi:- 
comedy,  Athens  was  fighting  with  a  light  heart,  and  the  hard- 
ships of  war  were  presented  on  their  comic  side,  in  the  ludicrous 
complaints  of  the  effeminate  Dionysus,  who  found  in  tlie  Taxi- 
archi military  service  as  unpleasant  as  in  the  Frogs  he  finds 
rowing.  Later  in  the  war,  service  was  more  of  a  duty  than  a 
jest,  and  in  the  Malingerer  we  have  Eupolis  directing  his  talents 
to  scorn  of  the  young  men  who  had  not  the  stuff  of  soldiers  in 
them.  Perhaps  in  no  respect  does  Eupolis  show  more  clearly 
liis  claims  to  be  considered  a  comedian  of  the  Old  Attic  Comedy 
than  in  his  relations  to  the  politicians  of  his  time.  His  literary 
activity  begins  after  the  death  of  Pericles,  but  not  after  the 
death  of  Cleon  or  Hyperbolus,  and  hence  the  difference  in  his 
attitude  towards  these  statesmen  respectively.  Pericles,  whom 
Cratinus,  Teleclides,  Hermippus,  and  doubtless  all  real  come- 
dians, derided  unceasingly,  had  now  been  elevated  on  the  pedes- 
tal of  the  "  good  old  times,"  and  it  is  from  comedy  that  Pericles 
obtains  his  best  known  eulogy.  Cleon  and  Hyperbolus,  how- 
ever, were  guilty  of  the  unpardonable  fault  of  being  yet  alive, 
and  this  fault  is  visited  with  condign  punishment  in  the  Mari- 
cds  and  the  Golden  Age.  "  Maricas"  is  a  foreign  word,  and  is 
used  as  an  insulting  epithet  for  Hyperbolus ;  the  Golden  Age 
was  directed  at  the  Athenians'  infatuation  for  Cleon.  So  suc- 
cessful had  he  been,  that,  according  to  Eupolis,  the  Athenians 
quite  relied  upon  his  restoring  the  age  of  gold.  With  a  bold- 
ness wbich  is  creditable  to  his  courage,  and,  according  to  the 
fabie,  cost  him  hi'  life,  Eupolis  did  not  spare  Alcibiades  from 
attack.  The  argument^  however,  of  the  Baptoe,  in  which  the 
attack  was  delivered,  is  lost,  apparently  beyond  recovery,  and  it 
can  only  be  conjectured  that  it  was  rather  on  the  ground  of 
public  morality  than  of  politics  that  Alcibiades  was  held  up  to 
derision.  It  seems  also  that  here,  too,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
worship  of  Bendis,  comedy  undertook  the  duty  of  protecting 
the  country  from  the  invasion  of  new  religions ;  for  the  Baptcs 
was  directed  against  the  worship  of  Cotytto  as  much  as  against 


THE  DRAMA  :  THE  OLD  COMEDY.         2  5  I 

Alcibiades  himself.  Politics,  philosophy,  religion,  and,  lastly, 
law,  came  under  the  comprehensive  sweep  of  Eupolis.  The 
litigiousness  of  the  Athenians,  which  afforded  material  for  the 
Wasps  of  Aristophanes,  gave  a  subject  for  the  Frospaltii  (inha- 
bitants of  the  deme  of  Prospaltos,  apparently  much  given  to 
lawsuits)  of  Eupolis. 

Inadequate  as  is  the  above  account  of  this  comedian's  works 
and  scope,  it  may  serve  to  show  that  Eupolis  was  one  of  the 
greatest  exponents  of  the  Old  Comedy.  A  true  Athenian,  he 
knew  the  life  of  Athens  on  every  side.  Everything  that  could 
interest  an  Athenian  citizen  he  laid  under  contribution  to  pro- 
vide material  for  his  comedies.  The  comic  possibilities  of  any- 
thing and  any  person  he  at  once  seized  on.  He  managed  his 
style  and  its  huge  compounded  words  with  as  much  ease  and 
grace  as  he  controlled  his  wild  plots.  His  personifications,  e.g. 
of  the  triremes  of  the  Athenian  navy  or  of  the  allied  cities  of 
the  Athenian  confederacy,  may  be  ranked  for  daring  and  suc- 
cess with  those  of  Aristophanes,  for  whom,  we  may  say,  to  char- 
acterise him,  he  was  no  unworthy  collaborator. 

Phrynichus,  to  be  distinguished  from  the  general  and  from 
the  tragedian  of  the  same  name,  though  not  ranked  in  the  first 
class  of  comedians  by  the  Alexandrine  critics,  was  considered 
by  them  as  a  writer  of  importance  in  the  history  of  the  Old 
Comedy.  Commencing  his  literary  career  at  the  same  time  as 
Eupolis,  and  dying  before  Aristophanes,  Phrynichus  seems  to 
have  at  one  time  belonged  to  the  same  literary  set  as  those  two 
poets.  For  Aristophanes,  when  retorting  on  Eupolis  the  charge 
of  piracy,  adds  the  further  charge  that  Eupolis  stole  from 
Plirynichus  as  well  as  from  the  Knights.  As  a  political  com- 
batant, Phrynichus  does  not  appear  to  have  made  any  great 
mark  on  the  history  of  the  Old  Comedy.  At  the  same  time,  his 
comedy  Monotropus,  which,  from  its  title,  might  have  been  a 
character-comedy,  does  not  really  justify  us  in  ranking  him 
as  one  of  the  ancestors  of  the  New  Comedy.  Although  the 
writers  of  the  New  Comedy  produced  more  than  one  piece 
bearing  this  title,  and  although  such  plays  were  undoubtedly 
general  studies  of  this  type  of  character,  we  are  excluded  from 
comparing  with  them  the  comedy  of  Phrynichus,  because  the 
author  expressly  declares  by  the  mouth  of  one  of  the  characters 
that  the  character  was  a  caricature  of  a  contemporary  Athenian, 
the  celebrated  misanthrope  Timon.  Perhaps  the  work  of  Phry- 
nichus that  would  have  had  most  interest  for  us,  if  it  had  been 
preserved,  is  the  MiLses,  from  which  comes  a  celebrated  tributt 


2  52        HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

to  Sophocles. ■!  From  it,  and  from  the  title  of  the  comedy,  it 
bias  been  conjectured  that  in  this  play,  as  in  the  Frogs  of 
Aristophanes,  there  was  a  criticism  of  the  dramatic  merits  of 
Sophocles  and  Euripides.  The  Muses  was  put  on  the  stage 
at  the  same  time  as  the  Frogs,  and  was  defeated  by  it.  Wa  • 
have  already  seen  that  this  kind  of  literary  criticism  occurs  in 
Old  Comedy  at  least  as  early  as  the  time  of  the  Crapatali  of 
Pherecrates. 

Plato,  the  comedian,  was  a  contemporary  of  Aristophanes. 
His  fierce  invective  and  brilliancy  of  expression  class  him  with 
Cratinus.  To  his  long  life  and  varied  experience  correspond 
the  large  number  and  great  variety  of  his  comedies.  Politicians, 
orators,  and  tragedians  were  attacked  and  exposed  in  such 
plays  as  his  Hyperholus,  Cleophon,  and  Cinesias.  His  fellow- 
comedians  did  not  escape,  and  in  his  Victories  he  made  merry 
over  the  colossal  figure  of  Peace  which  Aristophanes  introduces 
in  his  comedy  of  that  name.  He  wrote  also  various  mytho- 
logical and  some  domestic  comedies,  which  may  reasonably  be 
supposed  to  have  been  composed  rather  from  fear  of  the  law 
than  from  any  preference  to  this  style  of  play  on  the  part  of  the 
author  himself. 

Of  some  twenty-five  other  comedians  who  were  classed  by 
Alexandrine  critics  among  the  writers  of  the  Old  Comedy, 
practically  nothing  is  known.  Ameipsias  twice  defeated  Aris- 
tophanes. Archippus  put  a  chorus  of  fishes  on  the  stage,  and 
the  plot  of  his  Fishes  seems  to  have  consisted  in  a  war  between 
the  fishes  and  the  fish-eating  Athenians,  which  was  eventually 
concluded  by  a  more  or  less  comic  treaty.  From  one  fragment  ^ 
it  would  seem  that  sea-sickness  was  sufficiently  appreciated  in 
the  time  of  Archippus  to  furnish  forth  a  joke.  Callias,  perhaps, 
lets  us  into  the  secret  why  the  followers  of  Socrates  and  the 
students  of  philosophy  were  not  always  loved  in  Athens,  when 
he  touches  on  the  conceit  of  young  philosophers.^  And  from 
Lydppus  we  have  a  fragment*  which   not   only   shows   tha 

*  IJ.dKa<p  2o(/)OKX^r;s,  6s  ttoXAv  xP^i'OI'  /3io«/f 
dir^davev,  evdal/nwv  dvT]p  Kal  5e^i6s, 
TToXXds  TTOLTiffas  Kal  KoKai  rpaycpSlai' 
KoXus  S'  ^reXei^TTjcr',  ovS^v  inrofxeifas  Kaxilk 

*  ws  ijdij  TTjv  daKarrav  dirb  rrji  yrjs  opdy, 
&  firfr^p,  iffTt  fiT]  irXioi'Ta  firjdafjLoD. 

*  A.  t/  5tJ  <ri)  aefivot  Kal  <ppov€?s  o0rw  /i^-ya  } 
B.  ^lecTTt  yap  fioi.      ^ixiKpdrtjs  yap  ahiot, 

*  el  n^  rediaaai.  ras  'AO-^vas,  ar^Xexos  etf 
el  8i  rediacrai  firj  Tedripevcrai  d',  6vos 

tl  S'  eiapearQv  dirorp^x^is  Kayd'/jXiou 


THE  DRAMA  :    ARISTOPHANES.  253 

Athenians'  pride  in  Athens,  but  further  informs  us  that  the 
donkey  was  there  regarded  as  a  stupid  animal.  The  names  of 
the  remaining  comedians  are  but  names  to  us — Aristonymus, 
Aristomenes,  Hegemon,  Lycis,  Leuco,  Metagenes,  who  was  the 
son  of  a  slave,  and  wrote  comedies  intended  to  be  read,  not 
acted  ;  Strattis,  whose  jokes  were  weak,  and  Avho  parodied  plays 
of  Euripides ;  Alcseus,  Eunicus,  Cantharus,  Diodes,  one  of 
whose  fragments  shows  that  he  was  a  writer  of  some  elegance 
and  reflection ;  Nicochares,  Nicopliron,  Philyllius,  Polyzelus, 
Sannyrio,  Demetrius,  Apollophanes,  Cephisodorus,  Epilycus, 
and  Euthycles.  As  to  these  writers,  who,  as  was  said  above, 
were  placed  among  the  writers  of  the  Old  Comedy  by  the 
Alexandrine  critics,  we  can  say  nothing  more  than  that,  to  judgp 
from  the  names  of  their  plays,  they  must  have  inclined  much 
more  to  the  Middle  than  to  the  Old  Comedy. 


CHAPTER    VIL 

ARISTOPHANES. 

Aristophanes,  son  of  Philippus,  of  the  deme  of  Cydathenaion, 
was  born  about  B.C.  444.  and  died  about  B.C.  380.  "What  little 
we  know  about  his  life  is  mainly  derived  from  the  scanty  and 
usually  ambiguous  hints  to  be  found  in  his  own  plays.  The 
fact  tliat  he  could  be  charged  with  being  an  alien,  and,  per- 
haps, the  complaint  of  Eupolis  that  the  Athenians  showed  more 
favour  to  foreign  than  to  native  comedians,  show  that  there  was 
something  which  at  least  had  the  appearance  of  irregularity  in 
Aristophanes'  extraction.^ 

For  us,  the  life  of  Aristophanes  is  his  works.  These  may  be 
divided  into  two  groups — tliat  which  precedes  and  that  which 
follows  the  Sicilian  expedition.  In  both  groups  there  are 
comedies  primarily  political,  but  those  of  the  earlier  group  are 
distinguished  by  greater  freedom  of  attack  and  more  unre- 
strained personalities  than  those  of  the  second.  In  both  there 
are  comedies  dealing  with  philosophy  or  literature,  but  the 
earlier  ones  treat  those  subjects  in  their  relation  to  and  effect 

^  Attempts  have  been  made  to  combine  this  with  Ach.  653,  and  to  infer 
that  Aristophanes  or  his  father  obtained  a  KXrjpovx^a.  in  .^Egina  ;  but  it  is  un- 
certain whether  the  parabasis  of  the  Acharnians  refers  to  Aristophanes  him- 
self or  to  Callistratn*,  in  whose  name  the  piece  was  brought  out,  and  conse. 
queutly  little  reliance  can  be  placed  on  the  combination. 


2  54  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

on  the  life  of  the  nation,  while  the  later  ones  treat  Ihem  apart 
from  any  such  relation.  The  attitude  Aristophanes  assumed 
towards  the  new  tendencies  of  his  time  was  at  first  that  of  un- 
compromising hostility,  subsequently  that  of  qualified  opposi- 
tion, and  later  still  that  of  his  early  years.  But  of  this  change 
of  attitude  Aristophanes  himself  was  hardly  conscious,  and  it 
does  not  correspond  to  the  division  into  two  groups  which  we 
have  laid  down.  It  is,  however,  only  in  the  later  group  that 
we  find  such  plays  as  the  Plutus  or  Aeolosicon,  which  are  of  a 
purely  mythological  cast,  and  belong  to  the  Middle  rather  than 
to  the  Old  Comedy. 

Before  composing  comedies  of  his  own,  Aristophanes  seems 
to  have  done  something  in  the  way  of  comic  writing,  assisting 
his  friends.^  When  he  took  to  composing  independently,  he 
brought  out  his  first  three  plays  not  in  his  own  name,  but  under 
that  of  Callistratus,  and  perhaps  Philonides.  The  reason  for  this 
has  been  supposed,  on  the  authority  of  a  scholiast,  to  have  been 
that  the  law  forbade  any  poet  of  less  than  forty  years  of  age  to  re- 
ceive a  chorus  from  the  Archon.  As,  however,  in  all  probability, 
^schylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  and  Eupolis  produced  plays  in 
their  own  names  before  attaining  that  age,  and  as  Aristophanes 
himseK  was  not  even  thirty  years  old  when  he  personally 
brought  out  the  Knights,  it  seems  probable  that  the  law  in 
question  owes  its  existence  to  confusion  with  a  law,  which  cer- 
tainly did  exist  though  disregarded,  that  no  person  under  that 
age  should  be  choregus  to  the  chorus  of  boys.  It  is  reasonable 
to  suppose,  however,  that  the  Archon  would  decline  to  give  a 
mere  boy  of  eighteen  or  twenty  years  of  age  a  chorus.  If  to  this 
we  add  that,  as  Aristophanes  himself  gives  us  to  understand  in 
the  parabasis  of  the  Knights,'^  the  training  of  the  chorus  and  the 
production  of  a  comedy  required  much  practical  experience, 
which  Aristophanes  at  that  age  did  not  possess,  we  have  a 
sufficient  explanation  of  his  course  of  procedure. 

The  Dcetaleis  or  Banqueters,  B.C.  427,  was  the  first  comedy 
produced  by  Aristophanes,^  and  it  obtained  the  second  prize. 
Like  the  Clouds,  this  piece  dealt  with  education,  and  represented 
the  older  methods  as  exclusively  productive  of  morality,  and 
the  new  tendency  as  making  for  the  dishonest  quibbles  of 
superficial  rhetoric.     In  the  following  year  Callistratus  brought 

1  Vesp.  1018: — 

0^  (papepwi,  dXX'  iiriKovpQv  Kpv^8r)v  iripoKTi  iroiijTaii. 

»  S16,  S4I- 

>  Nub.  5254;  whether  in  the  name  of  Philouides  or  Callistiatus  is  oil 
certain. 


THE  DRAMA  :    ARISTOPHANES.  2$$ 

out  the  Babylonians  on  behalf  of  Aristophanes.  The  date  we 
know  from  the  parahasis  of  the  Achamians,^  which  shows  that 
the  Babylonians  contained  some  allusions  to  the  embassy  of 
Gorgias,  who  had  been  sent  by  the  Leontini  the  previous  year 
to  obtain  the  assistance  of  Athens  against  Syracuse.  The  title 
of  the  play  seems  to  have  been  a  word  used  at  Athens  in  a 
general  sense  for  foreign  slaves,  and  the  chorus  consisted  accord- 
ingly of  slaves  branded  on  the  forehead  with  the  mark  of  the 
owl,  indicating  that  they  were  the  property  of  Athens — a  view 
of  things  which  could  hardly  have  been  felt  as  complimentary 
by  the  allied  states,  whom  this  chorus  of  branded  slaves  was 
intended  to  represent.  As,  moreover,  this  comedy  was  per- 
formed in  the  spring,  when  large  numbers  of  the  allies  were 
present  in  Athens  ^  for  the  purpose  of  paying  their  tribute,  the 
audacity  of  thus  representing  the  oppression  and  extortion  to 
which  these  very  allies  were,  according  to  Aristophanes,  sub- 
jected, amounted  to  recklessness.  The  consequence  was  a  pro- 
secution instituted  by  Cleon,^  probably  against  Callistratus, 
who  would  be  legally  responsible  for  the  play,  though  every- 
body would  know  that  Aristophanes  was  the  person  really  im- 
plicated. 

In  B.C.  425,  the  next  year,  Callistratus  produced  another 
comedy  for  Aristophanes,  the  Acharnia?is.  This,  the  earliest  of 
the  eleven  plays  which  have  survived  to  our  times,  obtained 
the  first  prize.  It  may  be  regarded  as  a  type  of  Aristophanic 
comedy.  Its  object  is  simple  :  to  set  before  the  Athenians  the 
desirability  of  peace.  Its  machinery  is  equally  simple  and 
direct.  Dicaeopolis  concludes  a  private  peace  with  the  Lace- 
daemonians, and  then  there  follows  a  series  of  scenes  in  which 
the  charms  of  peace  are  presented,  not  by  description,  to  the 
minds  of  the  spectators,  but  sensuously  and  concretely  to  the 
eyes  of  all  beholders.  This  trick  of  materialising  an  idea,  of 
dramatising  a  simile,  is  at  the  base  of  Aristophanic  comedy. 
Aristophanes  does  not  call  the  allied  states  "slaves  "  of  Athens  ; 
he  brings  them  on  the  stage  dressed  and  branded  as  "  Baby- 
lonians." Instead  of  comparing  the  dikasts  of  Athens  to  a 
swarm  of  pestering  insects,  he  produces  them  arrayed  in  the 
similitude  of  "  wasps."  Not  satisfied  with  the  mere  word  "air- 
walking,"  ^  to  describe  the  pursuits  of  Socrates,  he  discloses  him 
suspended  in  a  hanging  basket.  Such  simplicity  of  treatment 
obviously  can  only  be  attained  at  the  expense  of  probability,  and 
often  of  possibility.     At  the  festival  of  the  wine-god  ordinary 

1  635.  2  ^ch.  502.^  8  Ach.  377. 

*  depo^aTeip. 


256  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

rules  and  conventions  were  conventionally  and  as  a  rule  sup- 
posed  not  to  hold,  and  the  comedian's  freedom  of  treatment  was 
vshown  hy,  and  allowed  in,  not  only  his  mode  of  dealing  with  real 
events  and  persons,  but  also  in  his  disregard  for  the  limits  of 
time  and  space.  Thus,  in  the  Acharnians,  the  scene,  originally 
laid  in  Athens,  shifts  without  warning  or  apology  to  the  country. 
The  seasons  are  equally  accommodating,  and  spring  succeeds  to 
autumn  at  command.  The  moment  Dicaeopolis  concludes  his 
peace  with  the  Peloponnesians,  the  Boeotians  and  Megarians, 
who  have  evidently  been  waiting  behind  the  scenes  so  as  to 
appear  without  a  second's  delay,  appear  as  if  by  magic  to  trade 
with  him.  Not  only  are  the  external  and  mechanical  categories 
of  space  and  time  treated  thus  cavalierly,^  but  the  bonds  of  in- 
ternal probability  of  connection  between  one  scene  or  character 
and  another  are  equally  despised.  Of  the  twenty  characters  or 
more  that  belong  to  the  play,  most  appear  upon  the  scene  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  the  author  needs  them,  and,  having 
raised  a  laugh,  depart,  passing  over  the  stage  with  as  little  con- 
nection between  each  other  as  have  the  people  who  pass  one  iu 
a  busy  street  or  the  victims  who  defile  by  the  clown  in  a  harle- 
quinade. But  the  incidents  in  a  comedy  of  Aristophanes, 
though  linked  by  no  internal  chain  of  causation  or  probability, 
all  subserve  the  main  purpose  of  the  play — in  the  case  of  the 
Acharnians  that  of  proving  the  attractions  of  peace  ;  and  more 
than  this  is  not  expected  from  the  primitive  stage  in  which  the 
Old  Comedy  was.  Moreover,  each  of  the  incidents  is  comic  in 
its  own  way.  The  variety  thus  gained  precludes  any  danger  of 
monotony,  and  the  absence  of  motive  in  the  incidents  is  con- 
cealed by  the  rapidity  and  force  with  which  Aristophanes'  tide 
of  humour  carries  his  comedy  along. 

In  the  next  year,  B.C.  424,  Aristophanes  appeared  before  the 
public  of  Athens  for  the  first  time  in  his  own  name  with  the 
Knights.  In  this  comedy  Aristophanes  concentrates  himself 
again  on  one  simple  object,  that  of  attacking  Cleon.     "Whether 

1  It  must,  however,  always  be  remembered  that  as  the  Clouds  and  the 
Wasps  wliich  have  come  down  to  us  are  probably  not  the  Clouds  and  the 
Waspf:  which  were  performed  on  the  Athenian  stage,  but  amalo;amations  01 
"contaminations "  of,  in  each  case,  two  distinct  comedies  at  least,  so  too 
possibly  the  changes  of  place  and  time  in  the  Acharnians  are  due  to  a  "  con- 
tamination." But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  changes— at  any  rate  of  place — in 
the  Frugs  are  quite  parallel  to  those  of  the  Acharnians,  and  are  above  sus- 
)iicion.  Generally,  too,  we  may  say  that  these  changes  of  place  and  time  are 
characteristic  of  the  early  stage  of  drama  (cf.  tlie  Ayanievinon),  and  may  be 
readily  distinguished  from  inconsistencies  such  as,  in  the  Clouds,  making 
the  play  turn  first  upon  the  stupidity  and  then  on  tl  e  cleverness  ol 
Strepsiadea. 


THE  DRAMA  :    ARISTOPHANES.  257 

Cleon  had  been  subjected  to  similar  attentions  on  tlie  part  of 
Aristophanes  in  the  Babylonians,  we  cannot  say.  It  is,  there- 
fore, hard  to  decide  whether  the  prosecution  whicli  Cleon  then 
instituted  was  due  to  personal  motives,  or  was  really  prompted 
by  desire  for  the  public  good.  It  is,  however,  impossible  to 
deny  that  from  the  time  of  that  prosecution  the  matter  became 
one  of  personal  enmity  between  Aristophanes  and  Cleon.  For 
a  year  Aristophanes  allowed  the  matter  to  rest,  possibly  not 
caring  to  involve  Callistratus  in  any  further  lawsuits ;  when, 
however,  he  came  before  the  world  in  his  own  name  he  made 
such  an  onslaught,  in  the  Kninhts.  on  Cleon  as  must  have  been 
unusual  even  at  the  festival  of  Dionysus.  Cleon's  reply  was  a 
vexatious  charge  made  at  law,  that  Aristophanes  was  not  a  true- 
born  Athenian  citizen.^  The  story  goes,  that  Aristophanes 
replied  to  the  charge — which  must  then  have  been  that  not 
Philippus,  but  a  foreigner  was  his  father — by  an  apt  citation 
from  Homer.  2  If  it  is  true  that  this  procured  his  acquittal,  it 
shows  that  apposite  quotations  were  valuable  as  evidence  in  an 
Athenian  law  court.  How  much  further  Cleon  carried  his  re- 
prisals, and  whether  a  passage  in  the  Wasps^  is  to  be  taken 
literally  to  mean  that  Cleon  thrashed  Aristophanes,  or  caused 
liim  to  be  thrashed,  is  uncertain.  Only  one  thing  is  clear,  and 
that  is,  that  Aristophanes  learned  prudence,  and  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  did  not  allow  his  muse  or  his  feelings  to  carry  him  into 
danger  again. 

The  knights  who  are  represented  by  the  chorus  of  Aristo- 
phanes' comedy,  are  not  to  be  confused  with  the  division  of 
citizens  made  by  Solon  into  Pentacosiomedimni,  Knights,  Zeu- 
gitae,  and  Thetes.  In  the  time  of  Aristophanes  the  knights  were 
chosen  *  from  each  tribe  by  the  two  hipparchs  ;  and  as  their 
service  was  not  limited  to  the  dangers  of  war,  but  brought  much 
distinction  in  peace,  volunteers  were  always  forthcoming.  In 
many  festivals,  and  particularly  in  the  Panathensea,  the  knights 
rode  in  the  processions  in  full  array.  At  all  times  the  cavalry 
has  been  the  branch  of  the  service  which  the  wealthy  classes 
have  affected,  and  Athens  was  no  exception  to  the  rule.  Be- 
tween this  class  and  the  lamp-sellers  and  tanners,  who  aspired 
to  rule  the  state,  there  were,  in  addition  to  the  difference  of 
politics  which  separated  them,  distinctions  of  social  position  to 
embitter  still  further  their  strife.     It  was  then  extremely  natu- 

^  ^eWay  ypacp-q. 

'  firjTVp  tj.€v  T   ifie  (pTjffi  rod  ifipLevai  '  avrap  fytoye 
OVK  oIS',  ov  yap  vih  tis  ebv  yovov  airbs  aviyvia. 

'  1285.  *  Subject  to  a  SoKifMala  by  the  ^ovKfj. 

B 


258         HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

ral  that  Aristophanes,  when  about  to  attack  Cleon,  should  intio. 
duce  a  chorus  of  knights.  Tliat  the  choreutae  actually  were 
knights  in  this  case,  is  probably  a  misinterpretation  of  a  passaga 
in  the  comedy,^  just  as  the  tale  that  no  one  but  Aristophanes 
himself  dared  act  the  part  of  Cleon,  and  that  he  had  to  do  so 
without  a  mask,  is  a  misunderstanding  of  another  passage  ^  in 
the  play. 

Treating  the  Knights  now  from  the  literary  rather  than  the 
political  point  of  view,  we  notice  that  the  tendency  to  personifi- 
cation, and  to  the  concrete  rather  than  the  abstract,  finds  its  ex- 
pression in  bringing  on  the  stage  a  character  who  is  the  people 
itself,  Demos.  This  means  of  showing  the  relation  between  Cleon 
and  the  people  is  comic  in  itself,  and  much  that  is  humorous 
is  got  out  of  it ;  but,  as  compared  with  the  Acliarnians,  the 
Knights  cannot  be  pronounced  rich  or  varied  in  incidents.  The 
business  repeats  itself  considerably,  and  it  is  testimony  to  the 
comic  genius  of  Aristophanes  that,  in  spite  of  this,  the  monotony 
which  threatens  is  scarcely  felt.  The  piece  is  declamatory 
rather  than  dramatic,  and  the  declamation  of  abuse,  even  though 
every  imaginable  species  of  turpitude  is  alleged  against  Cleon, 
does  not  lend  itself  to  dramatic  treatment.  Whether  this  is 
really  the  explanation  of  the  want  of  invention  in  the  Knights, 
and  whether  this  was  the  literary  penalty  which  Aristophanes 
had  to  pay  for  the  choice  of  his  subject,  or  whether  the  want 
of  invention  in  this  case  is  due  to  the  irregular  action  of  genius, 
the  fact  remains.  Aristophanes,  however,  has  more  strings  than 
one  to  his  bow.  His  command  extends  over  the  whole  range 
of  the  comic,  and  if  in  the  Knights  there  is  less  variety  than  in 
the  Acharnians,  all  the  other  resources  of  humour  are  freely  used. 
The  contest  of  oracles,  for  instance,  in  which  the  Paphlagonian 
and  the  Sausage-seller  engage,  is  fertile  in  the  most  ingenious 
and  amusing  parodies  on  the  mystic  style  of  oracular  expression. 
The  enormously  long  speeches  which  a  Messenger  inevitably 
makes  in  a  Greek  tragedy  are  delightfully  parodied  by  the 
Sausage-seller.  Nor  must  the  sarcasm  be  overlooked  with 
which  it  is  represented  that  the  only  man  who  can  possibly 
contend  with  this  leather-seller  is  a  sausage-seller,  that  Athens' 
sole  hope  of  political  salvation  rests  on  the  slender  chance  of 
finding  a  bigger  blackguard  than  Cleon. 

In  connection  with  the  political  comedies  of  Aristophanes, 

we  are  often  told  that  Aristophanes  was  certainly  a  poet,  but 

first  of  all  a  patriot,  that  behind  the  grinning  mask  of  comedy 

ia  the  serious  face  of  a  great  political  teacher.     In  estimating 

»  50s  "  230- 


THE  drama:    ARISTOPHANES.  259 

the  literary  value  of  Aristophanes'  work  such  considerations  are 
wholly  out  of  place.  Literature  must  be  judged  by  its  own 
canons,  and  to  introduce  personal  considerations  is  as  lelevant 
as  it  would  be  to  claim  beauty  for  a  line  of  verse  because  it 
expressed  a  scientific  truth  in  the  terms  and  with  the  precision 
^  of  science.  Patriotism  has  its  beaoity,  and  poetry  has  its  beauty 
but  the  beauty  of  the  one  thing  is  quite  distinct  from  the  beauty 
of  the  other ;  and  to  prove  that  Aristophanes  has  the  beauty  of 
patriotism  wiU  not  in  the  slightest  degree  prove  that  he  pos- 
sesses that  of  poetry,  nor  will  it  at  all  help  us  to  feel  the  beauty 
of  his  poetry.  Each  kind  of  art  has  its  appropriate  function  to 
fulfil,  its  peculiar  pleasure  to  excite,  and  no  amount  of  demon- 
stration that  a  given  specimen  of  art  or  literature  performs  some 
function  or  excites  some  pleasure  other  than  that  proper  to  it, 
will  make  that  piece  of  art  or  of  literature  good  of  its  kind. 
■  That  in  the  case  of  comedy,  of  all  forms  of  literature,  a  mistake 
on  this  point  should  be  possible  is  strange.  The  object  of 
comedy  is  plainly  to  amuse,  and  a  comedy  which  should  not 
amuse  could  not  be  a  good  comedy,  though  it  sent  you  away 
with  the  most  patriotic  aspirations  or  the  most  virtuous  resolves. 
Further,  it  may  be  questioned  whether  Aristophanes  himself 
would  have  claimed  that  his  vocation  was  that  of  patriot  rather 
than  poet.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  Frogs}  he  speaks  as  though 
the  function  of  tragedy  were  to  make  men  brave  and  good,  and 
it  may  perhaps  be  inferred  that  he  held  some  similar  but  erro- 
neous theory  as  to  the  function  of  comedy.  But  Aristophanes 
would  not  be  the  only  man  whose  practice  was  better  than  his 
theory.  The  passages  ^  which  have  been  quoted  to  show  that 
he  regarded  himself  as  having  rendered  great  services  to,  and  as 
having  sho\vn  great  courage  on  behalf  of,  the  state,  need  only 
be  examined  to  show  their  real  nature.  "When,  for  instance,  in 
the  Acharnians,  Aristophanes  says  that  the  Great  King  pro- 
phesied that  the  Athenians  were  sure  to  defeat  tlie  Spartans, 
because  they  had  Aristophanes  to  guide  them,  and  that  the 
Spartans  claimed  ^gina  solely  because  they  thereby  hoped  to 
deprive  Athens  of  their  patriot  comedian,  it  requires  but  little 
humour  to  appreciate  the  joke,  and  to  see  that  Aristophanes'^ 
ridicule  spared  nothing,  not  even  himself.  To  imagine  that 
such  a  passage  betrays  the  proud  consciousness  of  a  man  who 
feels  a  high  calHng  to  a  solemn  duty  is  simply  a  ponderous 
misapprehension. 

If  it  were  true  that  the  Old  Comedy  liad  had  no  political 

1  1022  and  1055. 
'  E.g.  Vup.  1028,  1043,  Ach.  645,  Eq.  511,  Pax  760,  Nub.  549. 


^    THE 


26c  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

direction  imparted  to  it  until  tlie  time  of  Aristophanes,  if  i\ 
were  true,  as  the  passages  in  the  Clouds  and  the  Peace  seem  tci 
imply,  that  Aristophanes  was  the  first  comedian  to  attack  public 
men  or,  at  least,  the  prominent  statesmen  of  the  day,  then  there 
would  be  some  reasonable  ground  for  believing  that  Aristophanes 
was  a  comedian  because  he  was  a  politician.  But  comedy  was 
political  long  before  Aristophanes  wrote  comedies,  and,  from 
Pericles  downwards,  the  greatest  men  of  Athens  were  attacked 
by  the  comedians  of  their  day.  If  proof  were  needed  that 
Aristophanes  was  a  politician  because  he  was  a  comedian,  and 
did  not  become  a  comedian  because  he  was  a  politician,  it  would 
be  afforded  by  the  mere  fact  that  when  comedy  ceased  to  be 
political  Aristophanes  still  continued  to  write  comedies.  That 
Aristophanes  wrote  poetry  because  he  was  a  poet,  and  not  be- 
cause he  was  a  patriot,  is  proved  by  the  lyrical  passages,  whose 
pure  and  intrinsic  beauty  places  him  by  the  side  of  Shakspere. 
That  he  was  urged  to  comedy  by  the  instinct  of  the  comedian, 
arid  not  by  the  aims  of  the  politician,  would  be  shown  by  the 
early  age  at  which  the  instinct  manifested  itself,  if  it  were  not 
sufficiently  demonstrated  by  the  irresistible  flood  of  comic  power 
which  carries  off  the  loosely  and  inartisticaUy  connected  scenes 
of  his  comedies.  Finally,  when  in  the  Knights  Aristophanes 
talks  of  his  victory  over  Cleon,  his  own  words  show  that  the 
triumph  in  which  he  gloried  did  not  consist  in  the  political 
annihilation  of  Cleon,  for  Cleon  flourished  more  than  ever,  but 
in  the  Comic  prize  awarded  to  his  play. 

It  is  only  those  who  do  not  imderstand  that  poetry  and 
humour  can  have  merits  of  their  own,  and  must  be  judged  by 
standards  of  their  own,  who  will  think  that  _the  fame  of  Aris- 
tophanes is  impaired  by  recognising  that  earnestness  was  not 
always  or  primarily  the  object  of  Aristophanes'  jests.  But 
although  the  question  of  Aristophanes'  patriotism  and  his 
politics  has  nothing  to  do  with  his  literary  rank,  in  considering 
his  character  as  a  man  they  have  to  be  taken  into  account.  In 
the  small  city-states  of  Greece,  and  owing  to  the  very  fact  of 
their  smallness,  the  demands  of  the  state  upon  the  citizen  were 
much  more  considerable  than  in  the  nation-states  of  modern 
days.  To  the  mind  of  Aristotle,  indeed,  it  had  occurred  that 
there  were  other  duties  than  those  of  citizenship,  and  that  it 
was  possible  to  be  a  good  man  and  yet  not  a  good  citizen ;  but 
before  his  time  it  may  be  questioned  whether  it  was  not  the 
universal  assumption  that  he  who  performed  duly  all  the  func- 
tions of  a  citizen,  thereby  discharged  the  whole  duty  of  man. 
For  the  average  citizen  who  had  no  ideas  but  those  derived 


THE  DRAMA  :    ARISTOPHANES.  26 1 

from  the  current  stock  in  use  amongst  his  neighbours,  and 
whose  feelings,  sympathies,  objects,  and  interests  were  thoso 
of  his  fellow-citizens,  such  a  state  of  things  was  adapted.  But 
for  the  man  whose  intellectual  growth  raised  him  to  a  height 
that  enabled  him  to  see  beyond  the  limits  of  the  city,  and  gave 
him  interests  beyond  its  local  and  transient  interests,  such  a 
etate  of  things  was  not  adapted.  A  want  of  harmony  between 
him  and  his  fellows  would  necessarily  be  felt  by  both,  and  as 
Greek  science  knew  nothing  of  evolution,  and  Greek  philoso- 
phers had  no  conception  of  progress,  as  Greek  poets  could  not 
look  forward,  and  as  Greek  statesmen  had  no  notion  that  per- 
fection was  in  the  future  and  not  in  the  past,  it  necessarily 
resulted  that  those  minds,  whose  greatness  put  them  out  of 
joint  with  the  present,  looking  for  a  better  state  of  things,  saw 
it  in  the  past.  They  looked  before,  not  after,  and  pined  for 
what  was  not.  Plato,  Thucydides,  Isocrates,  and  Aristophanes, 
were  all  aristocrats.  Euripides,  in  whom,  indeed,  were  concen- 
trated all  the  new  tendencies  of  his  time,  had  no  faith  in  the 
future,  and  was  as  much  estranged  from  the  mass  of  the  citizens 
as  the  most  reactionary  of  oligarchs.  In  his  general  political 
views  then,  and  especially  in  his  longing  for  peace,  Aristophanes 
was  undoubtedly  sincere.  In  some  cases,  as  in  that  of  Cleon, 
it  is  idle  to  deny  that  personal  feeling  had  more  to  do  with  his 
views  than  had  any  other  emotion,  and  in  no  case  is  it  reason- 
able to  imagine  that  the  particular  charges  or  epithets  have 
necessarily  or  probably  any  ground  other  than  the  humour 
attaching  to  abuse.  In  his  aristocratical  sympathies  and  his 
opposition  to  the  war,  however,  we  may,  as  we  have  said,  recog- 
nise Aristophanes'  sincerity,  and,  whether  such  views  were  or 
were  not  admirable  in  themselves,  he  is  at  least  entitled  to  all 
the  merit  that  is  due  to  a  man  who  fights  an  up-hill  battle,  and 
who  holds  to  the  struggle  his  life  through.  Throughout  his 
life,  Aristophanes  was  opposed  in  politics  to  the  majority  of  the 
citizens  before  whom  his  comedies  were  presented,  and  this 
raises  the  question  as  to  the  political  influence  of  Aristophanes* 
comedies. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  hard  to  imagine  that  a  comedian  would 
have  ventured  to  attack  so  unsparingly  the  views  of  the  majority 
of  his  audience,  if  the  attack  were  to  be  taken  seriously.  In 
this  respect  we  may  consider  religion  and  politics  together,  and 
if  the  ridicule  poured  upon  Dionysus  in  the  Frogs  was  taken  by 
the  audience  in  jest,  and  was  not  regarded  by  them  as  any 
serious  argument  against  the  worship  of  the  god,  then  we  may 
conclude  that  the  audience  regarded  in  the  same  light  the  ridi 


262  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

cule  poured  upon  the  politician  they  believed  in.  It  was  excel- 
lent fooling,  but  did  not  prevent  the  Athenians  from  bestowing 
oflferings  on  Dionysus,  or  office  on  Cleon.  It  may,  however,  ba 
eaid  that  the  ridicule  of  the  gods,  though  not  intended  by  Aris- 
tophanes so  to  operate,  yet  did  act  as  a  solvent  on  the  national 
religion.  This  is  true,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  Aristophanes' 
ridicule  had  a  similar  effect  on  the  democratical  party.  It  ia 
much  more  probable  that  in  this  case,  too,  the  solvent  operated 
in  a  manner  unexpected  by  Aristophanes,  and  that  it  destroyed, 
not  the  faith  of  the  democrats  in  democracy,  but  the  faith  of 
the  Athenians  in  the  honour  of  their  public  men. 

In  the  next  place,  if  we  look  at  history  and  endeavour  to 
trace  the  effect  of  comedy  on  politics,  we  see  that  whatever  its 
effect  may  have  been,  it  was  too  minute  to  be  irisible  at  this 
distance  of  time.  Pericles,  as  we  have  already  seen,  if  abuse 
could  have  effected  it,  would  have  governed  Athens  but  a  brief 
time.  The  effect  of  the  Baln/lonians  on  the  political  fortunes  of 
Cleon  is  to  be  inferred  from  the  fact,  that  it  was  only  after  that 
play  that  Cleon  reached  the  height  of  his  power.  Again,  the 
Athenians  hear  and  crown  the  Knights,  and  immediately  de- 
spatch Cleon  to  Thrace  with  full  powers  of  command.  Of  all 
the  lesser  leaders  of  the  people,  Eucrates,  Lysicles,  Hyperbulus, 
&c.,  not  one,  so  far  as  we  know,  was  prevented  by  the  attacks 
of  the  comedians  from  attaining  and  exercising  influence  over 
the  people.  Aristophanes  had  nearly  twenty-seven  years  in 
which  to  persuade  the  people  to  make  peace,  but  his  efforts 
were  not  crowned  with  success. 

To  these  considerations  we  may  add  what  we  have  said  above, 
that  even  in  the  parabases  Aristophanes  does  not  take  himsielf 
too  seriously.^  He  puts  forward  his  claims  to  have  done  sober 
JBervice  to  the  state  with  such  comic  exaggeration,  that  it  would 
ibe  quite  open  to  his  hearers  to  believe  either  that  he  did  or  did 
not  mean  his  words  seriously ;  and,  as  the  majority  of  his  audi- 
ence would  not  have  relished  his  words  if  they  thought  them 
serious,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  majority 
enjoyed  them  as  a  joke  merely.  Lastly,  to  dismiss  the  question 
of  the  political  influence  of  comedy,  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  for  a  poet  to  select  comedy  as  the  means  for  doing  service 
to  the  state,  would  be  a  somewhat  stupid  choice.  The  very 
nature  of  comedy  is  its  negative  character.  As  a  weapon  of  de- 
struction it  may  be  effective,  but  as  a  tool  for  construction  it 
must  be  a  failure.  To  understand  this,  we  have  only  to  ask 
how  many  practical  suggestions  the  political  comedies  of  Aris- 
tophanes contain  for  bringing  about  the  state  of  things  which 


THE  drama:    ARISTOPHANES.  263 

the  author  desired  to  see,  and  the  verj'  question  is  ridiculous. 
In  such  comedies  as  those  of  Aristophanes,  where  every  situa- 
tion, character,  idea,  and  allusion,  depends  for  success  on  it? 
absurdity,  we  can  expect,  as  we  get,  no  more  practical  sugges 
tion  for  concluding  the  Peloponnesian  "War  than  that  an  ambaa 
Bador  should  hire  a  beetle  to  convey  him  aloft  to  interview 
Zeus  on  the  subject.  In  respect  of  only  one  thing  does  it  seem 
necessary  to  modify  this  view  of  the  essentially  negative  char- 
acter of  comedy.  The  lyrical  passages  of  comedy  did  give 
Aristophanes  an  opportunity  of  dwelling  with  true  poetic  power 
on  the  charms  of  peace,  and  of  this  opportunity  he  does  not  fail 
to  avail  himself.^  But  in  all  other  respects,  comedy  is  politi- 
cally sterile. 

The  comedies  of  Aristophanes,  however,  are  by  no  means 
all  or  exclusively  political,  as  the  Clouds,  produced  the  year 
(b.c.  423)  after  the  Knights,  may  serve  to  remind  us.  Every 
person  or  thing  which  for  any  reason  occupied  the  public  atten- 
tion, was  thereby  potentially,  and  as  a  rule  actually,  a  subject 
for  the  Old  Comedy  of  Athens.  The  object  of  the  Clouds  was 
to  ridicule  Socrates  and  the  new  tendencies  in  philosophy  and 
rhetoric.  That  Socrates,  who  morally  is  recognised  as  the 
greatest  man  outside  of  Christianity,  and  who  gave  to  philo- 
sophy the  direction  which  it  has  followed  to  our  own  days, 
should  have  been  chosen  by  Aristophanes  for  ridicule,  has  been 
regarded  as  a  fact  requiring  much  explanation.  Indeed,  so  long 
as  we  persist  in  regarding  Aristophanes  not  as  a  poet  and  the 
greatest  of  comedians,  but  as  a  mighty  thinker  whose  penetrat- 
ing glance  pierced  to  the  philosophical  foundations  of  things, 
whose  absorbing  purpose  was,  not  to  make  the  Athenians  laugh, 
but  at  all  costs  to  rescue  his  fellow-citizens  from  political  and 
moral  perdition,  so  long  the  Clouds  will  remain  an  insoluble 
problem.  It  is  not,  however,  necessary  to  proceed  on  any  such 
assumption ;  on  the  contrary,  as  there  is  not  the  least  shred  of 
evidence  that  Aristophanes  did  know  anything  about  philosophy, 
and  as  the  Clouds — our  only  positive  evidence — goes  to  prove 
that  he  did  not  possess  any  philosophical  knowledge,  it  is  per- 
haps advi-sable  to  renounce  the  assumption.  We  may  proceed 
from  a  fact,  the  fact  that  Aristophanes  was  a  comedian.  A 
comedian  is  distinguished  from  his  fellow-men,  not  by  superior 
philosophical  or  political  capacities,  but  by  his  seeing  the  comic 
side  of  things,  and  bj'  the  fact  that  his  function  and  his  satis- 
faction as  an  artist  consist  in  giving  appropriate  expression  to 
that  perception.  Philosophers  in  general,  and  a  philosopher  ix 
*  Pax.  566-581. 


264  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

particular  possessing  the  personal  appearance  of  Socrates,  offer  a 
fair  field  for  the  exercise  of  the  comic  faculty,  and  this  itself 
will  account  for  Aristophanes  writing  the  Clouds  ;  we  are  not 
compelled  to  assume  that  the  comedy  could  only  be  prompted 
by  the  fervour  of  moral  passion  or  philosophical  conviction. 
Certainly  Plato,  and  therefore,  probably,  Socrates,  did  not  regard 
the  Clouds  in  any  such  serious  light. 

But  although  a  consuming  zeal  for  his  country's  good  was  not 
the  sole  or  a  dominant  motive  in  Aristophanes'  mind,  it  is  quite 
probable  that  his  sober  opinions  on  philosophy  coincided  with 
his  instincts  as  a  comedian,  nor  is  it  any  objection  to  this  view 
that  he  knew  nothing  about  philosophy.  A  man  may  be  earnest 
in  his  opposition  to  what  he  does  not  understand.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  fact  that  Aristophanes  ridicules  philosophy  would  not 
by  itself  prove  that  he  did  not  believe  in  philosoph}'.  Such  a 
line  of  argument  would  prove  that  he  did  not  believe  in  the 
religion  of  his  fathers,  in  himself,  or  in  anything.  There  can, 
however,  be  no  doubt  that  in  respect  of  philosophy,  as  of  every- 
thing else,  Aristophanes  was  opposed  to  the  changes  which  he 
saw  going  on  around  him.  But  although  the  general  tendency 
of  his  comedies  is  unmistakably  this,  it  must  not  be  ignored 
that,  living  in  a  time  of  transition,  Aristophanes,  though  oppos- 
ing the  new  movements,  is  yet  carried  along  by  them  to  an 
extent  of  which  he  was  perhaps  himself  unconscious. 

Based  originally  on  family  ties,  the  small  states  of  antiquity 
exacted  from  their  members  a  subordination  to  the  state  as  much 
in  excess  of  our  notions  of  what  is  right,  as  the  Eoman  patria 
potcstas  exceeded  what  we  regard  as  the  limits  of  paternal  power. 
N,  But  the  intellectual  growth  of  the  sons  of  Athens  was  too  great 
\to  be  restrained  by  any  such  bonds,  and  Aristophanes  lived  at 
a  time  wlien  these  bonds  were  cracking  in  all  directions.  With 
ihis  intellectual  growth  Aristophanes  had  no  sympathy — indeed, 
^  may  be  doubted  whether  he  even  understood  that  it  was 
drowth.  He  only  saw  that  the  bonds  which  had  held  Athens 
together  were  breaking,  and  his  intellectual  rank  was  not  high 
enough  to  enable  him  to  dimly  look  into  the  future,  and  see 
that  these  bonds  must  break  before  Athens  could  take  her 
proud  and  rightful  place  in  the  march  of  mind  and  the  history 
of  the  world. 

The  So])hists,  in  declaring  that  man  was  the  measure  of  all 
things,  were  but  giving  expression  to  the  struggle  of  individual 
genius  with  the  bondage  of  tradition  ;  and  Aristophanes  himself, 
though  in  the  Clouds  he  declares  for  bondage,  yet  had  outgrown 
the  limits  which  he  desired  to  impose  on  growth.     Though  he 


THE  1  xlAMA  :    ARISTOPHANES.  265 

fights  against  the  future,  he  is  none  the  more  in  harmony  with 
the  present.  The  discord  which  exists  between  him  and  thu 
citizen  community  has  the  same  root  as  that  between  Plato  or 
Euripides  and  the  Athenians.  They  have  outgrown  the  old 
state  of  things.  Hence  the  contradiction  and  inconsistencies  in 
Aristophanes.  Socrates  in  the  Clouds  is  not  more  a  satire  on 
the  movement  Aristophanes  is  attacking,  than  is  Strepsiades  on 
the  state  of  things  which  he  is  defending.  The  new-fangled 
gods  of  the  Clouds  are  not  more  ridiculous,  or  more  ridiculed, 
than  the  gods  of  his  fathers.  While  abusing  his  political  oppo- 
nents for  playing  upon  the  greedy  and  mercenary  instincts  of 
the  people,  Aristophanes  relies  for  victory  on  outbidding  the 
demagogues  in  appeals  to  the  very  same  feelings.  At  the  same 
time,  he  betrays  his  own  estimate  of  his  fellow-citizens  by  basing 
his  arguments  for  peace — with  the  exception  of  some  beau- 
tiful lyrics  in  the  Pax — on  the  pleasures  of  eating  and  drinking 
and  on  sensual  enjoyments  of  a  lower  order.  In  short,  disconi- 
tented  without  knowing  that  the  cause  of  his  discontent  lay  in 
himself,  he  turns  longing  looks  to  an  imaginary  past — the  crea-l 
tion  of  his  own  romantic  and  poetic  spirit — and  finds  in  hia 
dissatisfaction  with  the  present  a  sufficient  proof  of  the  superi- 
ority of  the  "  good  old  times." 

Our  text  of  the  Clouds  is  in  such  an  unsatisfactory  condition 
that  to  endeavour  to  draw  any  conclusions  from  it  is  difficult, 
and  perhaps  rash.  We  know  that  originally  the  play  was  pro- 
duced in  B.C.  423,  and  was  unsuccessful.  Whether  it  was  again 
put  on  the  stage,  with  the  alterations  necessitated  by  such  a  re- 
production, is  tloubtful.  In  any  case,  the  Clouds  as  we  have  it 
was  never  performed  on  the  stage.  Even  in  the  absence  of 
direct  evidence,  this  would  be  certain  from  the  fact  that  with 
three  actors  the  piece  could  not  be  acted  as  it  stands.  For  in- 
stance, neither  at  the  beginning  nor  at  the  end  of  the  famous 
scene  of  the  Just  and  the  Unjust  Reason  is  a  second's  time  given 
for  the  actors,  who  have  been  taking  or  are  about  to  take  the 
parts  of  Strepsiades  and  Socrates,  to  change  their  masks  and 
dresses.  This  difficulty  might  indeed  be  explained  by  assuming 
that  the  play,  as  we  have  it,  was  not  intended  to  be  acted,  but 
to  be  read.  This  hypothesis,  however,  would  not  explain  the 
numerous  other  inconsistencies  and  pieces  of  bad  workmanship. 
For  example,  it  would  not  explain  how  it  is  that  Strepsiades  is 
at  first  represented  so  incapable  of  taking  on  sophistic  culture 
tlat  he  gives  it  up  in  despair,  and  then  subsequently  is  made 
to  appear  as  having  been  so  completely  successful  in  this  sort 
of  education  that  he  can  bewilder  all  his  creditors.     Nor  would 


266  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

this  hypothesis  give  any  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  parahasis 
(518-562)  being  thrust  into  the  middle  of  a  scene,  instead  of 
coming,  as  it  ought  to  do,  where  there  is  some  sort  of  pause  ii» 
the  action. 

These  are  only  two  of  the  many  crudities  which  demonstrate 
that  the  Clouds  cannot  have  been  given  to  the  world  by  Aris- 
tophanes as  we  have  the  play.  Indeed,  probably  even  in  Alex- 
andrine times,  the  grammarians  stated  that  Aristophanes  com- 
menced not  merely  a  revision  ^  but  re-writing  the  play,^  and  that 
we  have  the  play  only  half  re-written.  Incomplete  the  re-writ- 
ing 3  certainly  is,  if  it  is  by  Aristophanes ;  but  it  is  also  so 
bungling  that  even  sober  criticism  may  be  allowed  to  wonder 
whether  we  have  before  us  Aristophanes'  attempt  to  re-write 
the  Clouds,  and  not  really  two  comedies  of  Aristophanes 
jumbled  into  one  by  some  would-be  improver. 

If  now  we  recognise  that  it  is  unsafe  to  judge  of  Aristophanes' 
attack  upon  Socrates  solely  by  the  Clouds  as  we  have  the  piece, 
we  must  look  elsewhere  for  materials  to  correct  false  con- 
elusions  drawn  on  this  subject  from  the  Clouds.  Fortunately 
we  find  such  material  in  Plato's  Apology.  Plato  distinguishes 
between  the  misrepresentations  of  Aristophanes  and  the  charges 
formally  laid  against  Socrates  by  his  accusers  Anytus,  Mele- 
tus,  and  Lycon.  Aristophanes,  Plato  says  (19  B.C.),  represented 
Socrates  as  engaged  in  physical  investigations,  and  walking  in 
the  air  and  other  such  absurdities,  whereas  Anytus  accused  him 
of  corrupting  the  youth  (24B).  From  this  it  is,  on  the  whole, 
fair  to  infer  that  Aristophanes  had  not  accused  Socrates  of  per- 
verting the  youth,  and  hence  that  the  "  education  "  of  Phidip- 
pides,  which  makes  a  large  part  of  our  Clouds,  was  no  part  of 
the  Clouds  as  acted.  It  seems  also  to  follow  that  the  scene  of 
the  Just  and  the  Unjust  Reason  did  not  occur  in  the  Clouds  of 
B.C.  423.  If  these  deductions  are  made  from  the  Clouds  as  we 
have  it,  most  of  the  sting  is  taken  out  of  the  attack  on  Socrates. 
The  picture  of  the  philosopher  still  remains  something  more 
than  a  caricature,  for  there  are  points  in  it  which  are  distinctly 
unhistorical.  Socrates  did  not,  though  the  Sophists  did,  accept 
money,  and  Socrates  was  too  practical  a  man  to  be  guilty  of  the 
extravagant  asceticism  put  down  to  his  teaching  in  the  Clouds. 
But  these  details  prevented  neither  Plato  nor  Socrates  from 
enjoying  the  picture  ;  and,  apart  from  this,  what  remains  of  the 
Clouds  was  as  much  a  satire  on  the  people  who  imagined  that 
the  Sophists  could  impart  the  secret  of  fraud  with  impunity,  aa 
it  was  on  the  new  philosophy  itself. 

1  bibpOudit.  ^  SiacKevdl^eiw.  '  SiaffKtv^ 


THE  DRAMA  :    ARISTOPHANES.  26/ 

Viewing  the  Clouds  as  a  work  of  art,  we  are  obviously  bound 
to  bear  in  mind  that  we  have  not  before  us  what  Aristophanes' 
would  have  wished  us  to  have,  and  this  will  give  us  a  better 
appreciation  of  what  is  really  admirable  in  the  work.  The 
manner  in  which  the  subject  of  the  Clouds  was  worked  out  in 
the  original  version  can  be  for  us  only  a  matter  of  speculition, 
not  of  admiration.  But  we  are  still  free  to  enjoy  the  poetry  of 
Aristophanes'  conception  of  making  the  clouds  of  the  sky  to  be 
his  chorus ;  although  some  choral  odes  are  lost,  those  that  remain 
are  of  exquisite  beauty;  and  above  all,  in  the  speech  of  the  Just 
Reason,  descriptive  of  the  older  education,  we  have  work  that 
for  its  intrinsic  literary  merit  would  of  itself  establish  Aristo- 
phanes among  the  great  poets  of  the  world. 

In  the  following  year,  B.c.  422,  the  Wasfs  gained  the  second 
prize.  This  comedy  is  badly  constructed,  It  is  mainly  based 
on  the  absurdities  of  the  Athenian  jury  system  as  finally  shaped 
by  Pericles.  Any  Athenian  citizen  of  the  legal  age  who  chose 
to  attend  the  law  courts,  and  act  as  dikast  or  juror,  received  a 
trifling  sum  in  payment  of  his  services.  This  payment  was  in- 
tended to  compensate  the  poorer  citizens  who  otherwise  could 
not  have  afforded  the  time,  and  would  have  been  practically 
excluded  from  discharging  this  part  of  the  duties  of  an  Athe- 
nian citizen.  But  Aristophanes  represents  the  mass  of  the 
citizens  as  attending  the  law  courts,  not  from  a  feeling  of  duty, 
but  for  the  purpose  of  getting  a  day's  wages  without  doing  a 
day's  work.  A  further  result  was  that  the  habit  of  attending 
the  law  courts  became  a  positive  mania,  according  to  Aristo- 
phanes, with  the  citizens,  who,  in  their  capacity  of  jurors  with 
a  tendency  to  convict,  are  represented  in  the  chorus  as  wasps. 
Philocleon,  suff"ering  from  the  mania,  is  confined  to  the  house 
by  his  son  Bdelycleon,  and  calls  to  his  assistance  the  chorus, 
who,  however,  together  with  Philocleon  himself,  are  eventually 
convinced  by  Bdelycleon's  arguments.  Philocleon  is  induced 
to  forego  attendance  at  court  by  being  allowed  to  hold  mock 
trials  at  home,  and  here  the  character  of  the  play  suddenly 
changes,  and  a  set  of  totally  different  motives,  having  no  neces- 
sary or  probable  connection  with  the  hitherto  dominant  idea  of 
the  piece,  begin  to  work.  Bdelycleon,  it  seems,  as  indeed  his 
name  imports,  belongs  to  the  young  and  fashionable  oligarchs, 
who  bore  the  greatest  enmity  to  the  low-caste  leaders  of  the 
democratic  party.  Bdelycleon,  having  rescued  his  father  from 
political  defilement,  now  proceeds  to  convert  him  into  a  man  of 
fashion.     But  Philocleon,  on  his  very  first  entry  into  society^ 


268  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

gets  drunk,  and  the  piece  concludes  with  the  comic  sitxiatiana 
which  result  froni  this  unsuccessful  attempt  at  culture. 

Judged  by  no  higher  standard  than  that  of  Aristophanes  him- 
self, the  construction  of  the  Wasps  is  faulty  In  the  other 
plays  of  Aristophanes  there  is  only  one  central  idea,  and  that 
is  of  such  simplicity  and  so  dominates  everything  else,  that  un- 
mistakable and  satisfactory  unity  is  thereby  given  to  the  piece. 
In  the  Wasps  we  have  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  absurdities 
of  the  dikasteria  are  at  first  the  subject  of  the  comedy,  and  the 
fact  that  the  chorus  is  related  to  this  idea  is  enough  to  establish 
its  claim  to  being  the  central  idea  of  the  play.  But  the  latter 
part  of  the  piece  throws  all  the  emphasis  on  the  social  and  poli- 
tical antithesis  implied  in  the  contrasted  names,  Philocleon  and 
Bdelycleon.  In  other  comedies  of  Aristophanes  the  various 
scenes  have,  indeed,  no  connection  with  each  other,  but  they 
gain  all  necessary  unity  by  being  all  related  to  and  exponent  of 
the  central  idea.  But  in  the  Wasps  the  latter  part  of  the  play, 
if  it  is  not  co-ordinate  in  importance  with  what  has  hitherto 
been  considered  the  leading  idea,  cannot  as  a  subordinate  con- 
ception be  regarded  as  having  any  connection  either  with  the 
other  scenes  or  with  the  leading  idea.     [See  Note  A.] 

Apart  from  the  faults  of  construction  the  TVasps  is  amusing. 
Except  when  Philocleon  and  his  son  are  arguing  for  and  against 
the  dikast  system — and  then  the  piece  comes  to  rather  a  stand- 
still— the  comedy  is  full  of  life,  movement,  and  business.  The 
trial  of  the  two  dogs  has  won  a  place  for  itself  in  the  history  of 
literature  which  is  not  much  threatened  by  the  imitation  in  the 
Plaideurs  of  Racine.  The  concluding  scenes  are  in  the  bois- 
terous humour  of  the  Old  Comedy,  and  are  highly  amusing. 
Turning  from  the  literary  and  comic  side  of  the  piece,  we  find 
that  the  Wasp)s  is  of  much  importance  for  the  history  of  Aristo- 
phanes. At  the  beginning  of  his  public  life  he  threw  in  his  lot 
with  the  reactionary  party  in  politics,  and  lent  that  party  all 
the  fire  of  his  youlhful  genius.  Conspicuously  in  B.C.  424  iu 
the  Knights  did  he  identify  himself  with  the  Cleon  haters,  the 
Bdelycleons.  But  iu  B.C.  423  he  temporarily  left  politics,  and 
applied  his  attention  to  the  other  forces  which  were  growing, 
and  which  by  their  expansion  threatened  to  break  up  tlie  old 
state  of  things.  In  b.c.  422  he  returns  to  politics  in  the  Wasps^ 
but  he  does  so  only  to  find  that  it  is  impossible  to  take  up  his 
old  position.  He  is  no  fonder  than  he  was  of  Cleon — though 
he  is  more  guarded  in  his  expressions — but  if  he  has  undergone 
little  change  in  that  respect,  he  is  otherwise  much  altered,  for 


THE  drama:    ARISTOPHANES.  269 

he  no  longer  can  identify  himself  with  the  Bdelycleons.  The 
fact,  concealed  from  himself,  that  he  was  one  of  those  very  sons 
of  Athens  whose  growth  was  too  great  for  the  limits  imposed 
upon  them  by  the  old  regime,  manifests  itself  by  imperceptibly 
elevating  him  above  a  party  strife  which,  however  important 
for  the  history  of  Athens  as  a  city-state,  has  little  meaning  for 
the  greater  history  of  the  world.  In  the  Wasps,  Aristoplianes 
has  attained  a  point  of  view  from  which  he  can  see  the  absur- 
dities of  the  Bdelycleons  as  well  as  of  the  Philocleons,  and 
in  the  Birds,  as  we  shall  see,  he  seeks  a  still  higher  point 
of  view,  from  which  both  Bdelycleons  and  Philocleons  shaU 
be  invisible. 

In  B.C.  421,  the  Peace  won  the  second  prize.  Simplicity  in 
the  subject-matter  could  hardly  be  carried  further  than  in  thia 
play,  for  it  may  be  summed  up  in  the  sentence  that  a  farmer 
goes  to  heaven  and  fetches  down  peace.  The  treatment  of  the 
subject  is  as  bald  as  the  subject  itself.  The  notion  of  sending 
Trygaeus  up  to  heaven  on  the  back  of  a  beetle,  in  parody  of  the 
Pegasus  of  Euripides,  and  on  the  autliority,  as  Aristophanes  is 
careful  to  inform  us,  of  the  fable  of  .5^1sop,  is  really  amusing, 
but  the  rest  of  the  play  is  neither  particularly  artistic  nor  very 
funny.  The  rejoicings  in  the  second  part  of  the  play  have  been 
more  than  once  termed  a  comic  idyll,  and  some  of  the  lyrics 
dwelling  with  affection  on  the  good  time  when  there  was  peafJe 
in  the  land  are  indeed  beautiful,  and  amongst  Aristophanes' 
best  work.  But  the  interest  of  the  Peace  lies  less  in  its  literary 
merits  than  in  its  relation  to  the  history  of  the  time.  It  was 
performed  just  half  a  year  after  the  deaths  of  Cleon  and  Brasidas, 
and  consequently  at  a  time  when  the  hope  of  peace  Avas  strong. 
Indeed,  we  may  perhaps  reckon  tliis  comedy  as  one  of  the  minor 
causes  which  contributed  to  the  establishing,  a  few  weeks  after- 
wards, of  the  peace — which  was  no  peace — of  Nicias. 

In  B.o.  414,  seven  years  after  the  Peace,  comes  the  next  and 
the  best  of  tlie  comedies  of  Aristophanes  that  survive,  the  Birds. 
The  notion  that  this  play  was  a  profound  allegory  on  the 
Sicilian  expedition,  is  now  generally  and  properly  given  up.  It 
had  indeed  no  basis,  but  the  tacit  assumption  that  it  is  not 
poetry  but  politics — and  party  politics — which  constitute  a  great 
poem.  To  regard  the  Sicilian  expedition  as  the  subject  of  the 
Birds,  is  as  though  one  were  to  maintain  that  the  Spanish 
Armala  was  the  subject  of  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.  If 
any  other  evidence  than  the  comedy  itself  were  needed  to  prove 
that  the  tendency  of  the  Birds  is  not  political  or  personal,  it  would 
be  forth  somiug  in  the  fact  that  this  play  of  Aristophanes  was 


270  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

produced  at  a  time  when  tlie  psephism  of  Syracosius  ^  was  in 
operation. 

The  motive  and  the  keynote  of  the  whole  comedy  are  given 
in  the  first  two  lines  of  the  epirrhema  of  the  parabasis.^  The 
poet  will  leave  Athens,  its  war,  its  party  strife,  its  plague  of 
dikasts,  its  false  philosophy,  and  seek  a  home  in  the  realms  of 
poetry.  His  soul  takes  to  itself  the  wings  of  a  dove,  and  seeks 
rest.  And  it  is  just  because  he  is  no  longer  tied  down  by  the 
necessity  of  writing  for  a  purpose — however  good — as  a  bird  is 
tied  by  a  string,  that  Aristophanes  in  the  Birds  soars  to  a  height 
of  poetry,  to  which  he  nowhere  else  attains.  Here  he  rises  on 
the  wings  of  song  above  earth-born  care.  Mounting  with  the 
lark,  he  ascends  to  pure  and  peaceful  upper  air,  and  takes 
pattern  by  the  birds  who  know  no  politics.  "  Come  hither,"  he 
says  to  his  fellow-citizens,  "come  hither,  come  hither,  here 
shall  ye  see  no  enemy  but  winter  and  rough  weather."  The 
whole  comedy,  delightfully  simple  and  straightforward  in  its 
construction,  flows  right  on  as  sweetly  and  joyously  as  a  bird's 
song,  and  with  precisely  the  same  moral  and  purpose.  It  is 
beautiful,  as  a  poet's  midsummer  night's  dream  should  be,  and 
nothing  more.  Tliere  is  no  bitterness  in  the  play,  and  if  the 
mockery,  from  which  in  Aristophanes  nothing  escapes,  occa- 
sionally breaks  out,  it  disappears  again  as  suddenly  as  it  came, 
and  by  its  gloom  only  serves  to  enhance  the  joyous  beauty  of 
the  whole. 

Unique  in  ancient  comedy,  there  is  only  one  other  work  ii\ 
all  the  literature  of  antiquity  that  the  Birds  can  be  compared 
with  for  pure  play  of  fancy,  and  for  sympathy  with  the  beauty 
of  nature ;  and  that  other  work  is  the  Bacchce  of  Euripides. 
But  the  BacchcB,  although  in  the  quality  of  its  work  it  resembles 
the  Birds,  is  bathed  in  a  sad  religious  light,  so  that  we  more 
gladly  compare  the  Birds  with  our  own  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream.  In  both,  there  is  the  same  lightness  of  treatment,  the 
same  absence  of  reference  to  the  realities  of  life,  and,  above 
all,  in  both  the  purely  poetic  treatment  of  a  purely  poetic  con- 
ception. The  birds  themselves  are  drawn  with  a  delightful 
tenderness  and  love,  which  could  only  come  of  intimate  and  affec- 
tionate acquaintance  with  their  nature  and  their  ways.  Above 
all,  though  for  the  good  of  us  mortals  they  talk  in  human  lan- 
guage, the  birds  remain  birds.  They  are  quite  different  from 
those  of  Rabelais  in  his  description  of  I'/iile  sonnante,  which 
were  indeed  birds,  ^'mais  bien  ressemblants  aux  homntes."  This 
difference  in  treatment  between  Rabelais  and  Aristophanes  is, 

*  fii)  (cw/ty5et(7^at  6voixa.<TTl  rva.  ^  753' 


THE  drama:    ARISTOPHANES.  27  I 

of  course,  due  to  their  difference  in  object,  or  rather  we  should 
perhaps  say  to  the  fact  tliat  Eabelais  had  an  object,  whereas 
Aristophanes  had  none.  By  VIsle  sonnante  Rabelais  meant  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  with  its  bells,  and  consequently  his 
birds  are  "  Glergaux,  monagaux,  prestreganx,  abbegaux,  evesgaux, 
cardingatcx,  et  papegant,  qui  est  unique  en  son  espece"  and  so  on. 
If  Aristophanes  had  meant  his  play  as  a  satire  on  the  Sicilian 
expedition,  his  treatment  of  the  subject  would  not  have  been 
purely  poetical,  his  birds  would  not  have  been  what  they  are, 
but  like  those  of  Rabelais,  "  Men  ressemblants  aux  hommes." 

What  constitutes,  however,  the  charm  of  the  Birds  and  en- 
titles Aristophanes  to  the  name  of  poet,  more  than  the  humoui 
and  grace  of  the  play  as  a  play,  is  the  beauty  of  the  lyrics. 
Here  the  poet  "  turns  his  merry  note  Unto  the  sweet  bird's 
throat."  "What  a  poet  hears  when  he  listens  to  the  birds, 
what  a  poet's  sympathy  teaches  him  of  their  hopes  and  fears, 
that  we  may  read  in  the  Greek  of  Aristophanes.  His  liquid 
strains  of  "  unpremeditated  art,"  pour  forth,  like  those  of  the 
bird,  from  the  mere  joy  that  singing  brings  him.  He  gives  him- 
self up  to  his  art  to  carry  him  where  it  will.  His  sole  concern 
is  to  find  expression  for  the  power  of  song  within  him,  and  such 
free  and  joyous  notes  of  pure  beauty  were  never  heard  from  a 
bird  again  till  Shelley's  skylark. 

Among  the  lost  plays  which  date  from  before  the  Sicilian 
expedition  are  the  Merchantmen,  the  Proagon,  and  the  Amphi- 
araus.  The  Mercliantmen  is  referred  to  in  the  parabasis  of  the 
Wasps}  and  was  probably  produced  in  the  previous  year.  It  is 
thought  to  take  its  name  from  the  ships  in  which  was  con- 
veyed the  corn  that  was  distributed  among  Athenian  citizens 
gratis,  after  the  expedition  made  against  Eubcea  about  that 
time.  Among  the  results  of  this  corn-distribution  was  that  of 
causing  much  litigation,  for  it  naturally  raised  the  question 
whether  all  the  claimants  were  really  Athenian  citizens.  The 
Proagon,  produced  at  the  same  time  as  the  Wasps,  was  a  literary 
comedy,  directed  mainly  against  Euripides.  The  title  means  a 
preliminary  dramatic  performance  of  some  kind.  The  Amphi- 
araus,  produced  in  the  same  year  as  the  Birds,  was,  like  the 
Birds,  of  a  non  political  character,  and  probably  turned  upon  a 
cure  supposed  to  be,  but  not  really  effected  by,  the  miraculous 
power  of  the  deceased  hero,  Amphiaraus.  Possibly,  we  may  also 
refer  to  this  period  the  Lemnice,  an  attack  upon  the  worship  of 
Bendis,  the  Fanners,  an  argument  for  peace  resembling  the 
Achamians,  the  Heroes,  Triphales,  Geras,  and  Anagyrtu. 

1  1037. 


272  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

The  Lysistrata,  Thesmoplioriazusce,  and  Ecdesiazusoe,  form  a 
group  on  which  it  is  convenient  to  make  a  remark  of  general 
application  to  the  plays  of  Aristophanes.  It  is  generally  ad- 
mitted now  that  not  even  these  comedies  of  Aristophanes  are 
immoral  in  purpose  or  tendency.  As  to  their  nakedness,  on  the 
one  handj  it  is  historically  unjustifiable  to  convict  Aristophanes 
of  indecency  by  reference  to  the  standard  of  the  present  day. 
He  knows  no  fig-leaves,  but  he  knew  no  Genesis.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  historically  equally  unjustifiable  to  convict  the 
present  day  of  prudery  or  hypocrisy  by  reference  to  the  standard 
of  Aristophanes.  On  no  grounds  does  it  seem  justifiable  to 
import  his  patriotism  as  an  excuse.  More  than  this  it  is  un- 
necessary to  say.  Mr.  Symonds,  in  his  admirable  "  Studies  of 
the  Greek  Poets,"  has  treated  the  question  boldly  and  well,  and 
it  is  impossible  to  do  better  than  read  him  on  this,  as  on  all 
other  points  of  which  he  treats. 

The  Lysistrata,  produced  in  b.c.  411  at  a  time  of  great  dis- 
tress in  Athens  just  before  the  establishment  of  the  tyranny  of 
the  Four  Hundred,  is  tinged  by  the  general  melancholy  of  the 
time,  and  in  places  almost  becomes  pathetic.  The  subject  is 
worked  out  consistently,  but  not  with  the  wealth  of  inventive 
power  which  characterises  the  best  comedies  of  Aristophanes. 
The  character-drawing,  however,  is  good,  and  some  of  the  situa- 
tions are  very  comic.  Like  the  Ecclesiazusce  and  the  Plutv^y 
the  Lysistrata  has  no  parabasis,  and  it  is  further  distinguished 
by  the  fact  that  the  chorus  is  divided  into  two  halves,  each 
consisting  of  twelve  choreutse,  one  half  being  of  men,  the  othei 
of  women. 

The  ThesmophoriazuscB  was  produced  in  b.c.  411,  probably  at 
the  Great  Dionysia  after  the  overthrow  of  the  Four  Hundred, 
which  is  alluded  to.^  In  point  of  construction,  the  Thesmopho- 
riazusce  is  a  great  advance  on  any  of  the  previous  surviving 
comedies.  Although  situations,  action,  and  plot  are,  in  Greek 
drama,  generally  in  so  rudimentary  a  stage  of  development  that 
they  can  scarcely  be  said  to  exist,  in  the  Thesmophoriazusce  they 
arc  all  to  be  found.  The  women  of  Athens,  enraged  at  the 
misogynist  tragedies  of  Euripides,  resolve  to  take  counsel  at  the 
Thesmophoria,  a  feast  to  which  only  women  were  admitted, 
how  to  kill  Euripides  by  way  of  revenge.  Hearing  this,  Euri- 
pides eventually  persuades  a  relation  to  disguise  himself  as  a 
■woman,  attend  the  Thesmophoria,  and  plead  for  him.  The 
relation,  Mnesilochus,  is,  however,  discovered  by  the  women  tc 

1  Thesm.  670,  808,  1140,    Other  events,  fixing  the  date,  are  alluded  to  805; 
860,  1060. 


THE  drama:    ARISTOPHANES.  2^3 

be  a  man,  and  is  handed  over  to  the  law  for  punishment.  Even- 
tually, however,  Euripides  effects  a  compromise  with  the  women, 
and  by  a  stratagem  cheats  the  law  of  its  victim.  Here  we  have 
an  undeniable  plot,  and  although  what  is  really  incidental  and 
subordinate,  i.e.  the  rescue  of  Mnesilochus,  comes  to  occupy 
more  room  than  what  is  logically  the  end  of  the  piece,  i.e.  the 
preservation  of  Euripides,  still  there  is  a  great  deal  of  action, 
and  in  the  discovery  of  Mnesilochus  a  striking  situation.  The 
play  is  thoroughly  non-political ;  the  humour  consists  largely 
in  the  parodies  of  Euripides,  which  occupy  a  large  part  of  the 
comedy  and  are  extremely  amusing.  The  choral  odes  are  short 
and  unimportant,  and  the  parabasis  is  cut  down.^ 

The  next  of  the  surviving  comedies,  the  Frogs,  was  produced 
some  six  years  after  the  Thesmophoriazusoe,  in  B.C.  405,  shortly 
after  the  victory  of  Arginusse  and  before  the  final  overthrow  of 
Athens  in  the  Peloponuesian  war.  In  point  of  construction  it 
is  greatly  inferior  to  the  Tliesmophoriazusce.  The  Frogs  falls 
into  two  parts,  which  have,  indeed,  an  external,  but  no  internal 
connection  with  each  other.  The  first  part  consists  of  Dionysus' 
journey  to  the  nether  world,  and  is  burlesque  in  character.  The 
Becond  part  consists  of  a  comparison  of  ^schylus  and  Euripides, 
and  is  literary  and  learned  in  character.  The  play  gained  the 
first  prize,  and  is  said  to  have  been  repeated,  with  some  altera- 
tions, in  consequence  of  its  success.  In  later  times  the  work 
has  enjoyed  great  popularity,  though  possibly  not  altogether  on 
grounds  of  pure  taste.  There  are,  indeed,  passages  of  poetic 
beauty  which  belong  to  Aristophanes'  best  work,  such  as  the 
choruses  of  the  first  part ;  and  the  whole  range  of  humour,  from 
the  roughest  horse -play  to  the  most  delicate  allusions,  is  dis- 
played in  this  comedy,  but  with  commentators  and  students  the 
elaborate  and  extensive  parodies  have  been  the  matter  of  most 
importance. 

The  second  part  of  the  Frogs  is  practically  an  attack  upon. 
Euripides,  and  the  justice  of  the  attack  has  been  in  later  times! 
a  matter  of  much  discussion.  Both  the  opinions  of  Euripides  I 
and  the  literary  form  in  which  he  expressed  them  are  unspar-l 
ingly  denounced  by  Aristophanes.  In  his  opinions  Euripides ' 
sympathised  with  the  intellectual  and  forward  movements  of 
his  time.     Aristophanes  neither  sympathised  with  nor  under- 

^  Subsequently  Aristophanes  wrote  another  ThesmophoriaziiscB.  This  Thes- 
mophoriazuscB  II.  was  not  a  SLopduais  or  8iao-K€ir/)  of  Th.  I.,  but  was  an 
entirely  new  play,  which,  however,  as  being  a  satire  on  women,  received  the 
name  of  the  previous  comedy,  to  indicate  its  general  nature  and  tendency. 

S 


274  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

stood  these  intellectual  movements.  In  order  to  take  her  place 
in  the  intellectual  history  of  the  world,  Athens  had  to  lose  her 
importance  in  the  political  history  of  Greece.  But  Aristophanes 
did  not  understand  this.  He  only  saw  that  if  the  new  ten- 
dencies were  victorious,  Athens,  glorious  in  the  past,  could  no 
longer  be  what  she  once  had  been.  From  his  own  point  of 
view  Aristophanes  may  have  been  right,  but  for  us  his  point 
of  view  is  wrong.  The  Persian  wars  once  over,  the  destinies  of 
mankind  depended  on  the  philosophers,  not  on  the  hoplites,  of 
Athens.  Aristophanes,  however,  thought  more  of  the  hoplitea 
than  of  the  philosophers. 

Before  proceeding  to  consider  Aristophanes'  criticisms  on  Euri- 
pides as  a  poet,  we  ought  to  say  one  word  on  the  immorality  with 
which  the  comedian  charges  the  tragedian.  On  this  point  we 
have  in  the  plays  of  Euripides  a  good  deal  of  evidence  before 
us,  and  there  is  consequently  little  excuse  for  a  hesitating  deci- 
sion on  the  question.  It  is,  however,  necessary  to  remember 
that  in  polemics,  as  in  other  things,  the  standard  of  decency  ia 
a  shifting  one.  Terms  which  one  age  would  hesitate  to  apply 
to  the  most  abandoned  villain  are  in  another  century  of  such 
frequent  use  as  practically  to  be  meaningless.  Bearing  this  in 
mind,  and  remembering  the  extremely  excitable  nature  cf  the 
Greeks,  we  shall  not  think  it  extravagant  to  say  that  the  charges 
of  immorality  which  Aristophanes  brings  against  Euripides  and 
his  plays  are  simply  Aristophanes'  way  of  saying  that  on  various 
points  he  totally  disagrees  with  Euripides.  In  his  literary  criti- 
cism Aristophanes  is  more  fortunate.  Living  at  a  time  when 
the  old  was  giving  place  to  the  new,  Euripides  shows  in  his 
work  all  the  inconsistencies  of  methods  and  uncertainty  of 
object  which  necessarily  characterise  a  transition  period.  This 
gives  Aristophanes  a  great  field  for  criticism,  which,  though 
often  one-sided,  is  often  just.  Aristophanes,  not  only  as  a  poet, 
and  a  great  poet,  possessed  taste,  but  he  also  enjoyed  the  comic 
power  necessary  for  the  most  telling  expression  of  his  criticism, 
and  a  better  poet  than  Euripides  would  have  escaped  scarcely 
better  from  such  a  slashing  attack.  Indeed,  even  ^schylus, 
the  poet  of  Aristophanes'  own  choice,  does  not  by  any  means 
come  off  scot-free. 

After  a  long  interval  comes,  in  B.C.  393,  the  next  of  the  sur- 
viving comedies,  the  Eoclesiazvsoe.  This,  on  the  whole,  is  infe- 
rior to  the  rest  of  Aristophanes'  plays.  Like  many  of  them,  the 
Ecdesiazusce  really  consists  of  a  series  of  scenes  illustrating  a 
simple  theme.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  in  this  case  the  theme 
(that  community  of  property  and  women  is  practically  impos- 


THE  drama:    ARISTOPHANES.  2/5 

fiible)  is  of  an  abstract  nature,  the  Ecclesiazusce  lacks  concentra- 
tion and  admits  of  no  plot,  even  in  the  sense  in  which  we  may 
speak  of  Aristophanes'  plots.  The  women  of  Athens  disguise 
themselves  as  men,  attend  the  ecclesia,  and  by  a  snatch-vote 
decree  that  the  state  shall  henceforth  be  governed  by  women. 
The  women  then  institute  communism,  and  a  series  of  scenes, 
most  of  them  amusing,  follows.  Eventually  the  play  stops,  not 
because  any  catastrophe  has  supervened,  or  because  any  appro- 
priate period  in  the  development  of  the  subject  has  been  reached, 
but  solely  because  the  play  must  stop  somewhere ;  and  this  is 
the  more  unsatisfactory  because,  although  the  scenes  chosen  to 
illustrate  the  practical  consequences  of  communism  show  clearly 
that  the  object  of  the  piece  is  to  demonstrate  the  impossibility 
of  communism,  yet  when  the  play  ends,  communism  is  appa- 
rently left  in  possession  of  the  field.  The  Ecclesiazusce  bears 
no  reference  to  contemporary  political  events  or  personages,  but 
simply  enjoys  itself  at  the  expense  of  a  philosophical  theory, 
which  is  stated  also  in  the  BejJuMic  of  Plato.  In  conclusion, 
the  choric  odes  are  of  no  great  merit ;  there  is  no  parodos,  pro- 
perly speaking,  and  there  are  no  parabases  or  stasima. 

In  tlie  Plutus,  as  in  the  Ecclesiazusce^  there  is  neither  plot 
nor  that  heightening  of  the  interest  towards  the  end  of  the  play 
which,  in  the  Acharnians,  for  instance,  takes  the  place  of  catas- 
trophe and  denoiiment  in  a  plot  properly  so  called.  Further, 
the  Plutus,  like  the  Ecclesiazusce,  consists  of  a  series  of  scenes 
illustrating  an  abstract  theme.  The  theme  of  the  Plutus  is  the 
desirability  of  the  good  being  rich.  This  is  the  purpose  for 
which,  and  the  plea  on  which,  Chremes,  who  has  been  fortunate 
enough  to  catch  the  blind  god  of  riches,  persuades  him  to  allow 
himself  to  be  cured  of  his  blindness.  The  god  must  have  his 
sight  to  see  who  are  good.  But  although  this  is  the  avowed 
purpose  of  the  play,  there  is  much  in  the  piece  that  is  not  merely 
inconsistent,  but  irreconcilable  with  this  avowed  purpose.  When 
Plutus  has  recovered  his  sight,  we  find  scenes  following  which 
at  one  moment  seem  to  show  that  the  good  only  have  been 
made  rich  and  the  bad  poor,  and  at  another  can  only  be  under- 
stood on  the  assumption  that  everybody  indiscriminately  has 
been  made  rich.  In  fact,  Poverty,  after  an  argument,  is  utterly 
banished  from  the  earth,  and  the  gods  are  reduced  to  the  utmost 
need,  because,  as  all  men  have  become  rich,  no  man  has  any 
motive  for  making  offerings  to  the  gods.  There  is  really  no 
unity  of  purpose  in  the  Plutus,  and  if  the  play,  as  we  have  it, 
came  from  the  hands  of  Aristophanes,  then  in  his  old  age  he 
lost  his  certainty  of  touch,  and  being  unable  to  conceive  clearly 


276  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

his  own  purpose,  wavered  between  two  inconsistent  ends  with 
out  lealising  their  inconipa-tibility.^ 

The  Plutus  is  sometimes  said  to  belong  to  the  Middle  Comedy, 
and  sometimes  to  be  a  transition  stage  between  the  Old  ind  the 
Middle.  If  we  look  merely  at  the  scenes  which  illustiate  the 
desirability  of  the  good  being  made  rich,  we  see  that  they  have 
the  moral  tendency  which  is  a  feature  of  the  Middle  Comedy. 
If,  however,  we  look  at  the  scenes  which  illustrate  the  conse- 
quences of  all  men  being  rich,  we  are  reminded  of  the  Eccle- 
siazusce,  which  illustrates  the  consequences  of  communism,  and 
of  the  Clouds,  which  illustrates  the  consequences  of  philosophy; 
or  again,  looking  at  the  distress  of  the  gods  when  their  sup- 
plies are  stopped,  we  are  reminded  of  the  Birds.  There  is,  then, 
in  the  Plutm  a  strain  of  the  Old  as  well  as  of  the  Middle 
Comedy.  2 

To  this  period  of  Aristophanes'  literary  career,  finally,  must 
be  referred  those  lost  plays  whose  titles  show  that  they  dealt 
with  mythological  subjects,  and  therefore  do  not  belong  to  the 
earlier  time  when  comedy  was  political  in  its  nature.  Such 
plays  are  the  Daughters  of  Dandus,  tlie  Phenician  Women,  the 
Centaur,^  in  which  Aristophanes,  like  Epicharmus,  made  fun  of 
the  tremendous  appetite  of  Heracles  ;  the  Dcedalus,*  in  which 
Leda  appeared  with  her  egg  like  a  hen.  There  probably  also 
belong  to  this  period  the  Horoz,  the  Telmessenses,  and  the  Polyi- 
dus,  which  were  directed  against  the  new  religions  now  creeping 
into  Athens.     Polyidus,  according  to  the  story,  recalled  Glaucus 

1  It  characterises  the  taste  of  the  Byzantine  scholars  that  the  Plutus  waa 
their  favourite  comedy. 

-  Indeed,  so  distinct  are  the  two  strains,  that  it  has  been  maintained  that 
in  the  Plutus,  as  in  the  Clouds  and  the  Wasps,  we  have  an  amalgamation  or 
"contamination"  of  two  distinct  comedies,  and  that,  at  least  in  the  case  of 
the  Plutus,  one  of  these  two  comedies  belongs  to  the  Middle,  and  not  to 
Aristojihanic  comedy.  Traditionally,  however,  our  Plutiis  is  regarded  as  hav- 
ing been  produced  in  B.C.  388,  and  as  being  a  revision  (5i6p6wffis  rather  than 
SiacTKevri)  of  an  earlier  form  of  the  Plutus  produced  in  B.C.  408.  Thus  Plutut 
I.  possessed  the  choral  odes  which  are  wanting  in  Plutus  II.  But  the  tradi- 
tional view  has  difficulties  of  its  own ;  for  instance,  a  scholiast  commenting 
on  one  passage  says  this  passage  is  taken  from  Plutus  II.,  as  though  he  had 
not  got  Plutus  II.  before  him. 

■''  This  comedy  had  an  alternative  title,  Dramata,  which  was  also  appa- 
rently an  alternative  title  for  another  comedy,  the  JViobus.  But  it  is  uncer- 
tain whether  there  was  any  difference  between  the  Centaur  and  the  Niubv^, 
except  that  one  was  a  later  version  of  the  other.  It  is  not  even  certain  tliat 
the  Niohus  was  by  ArLstophanes  ;  and  unless  Niobus  was  a  male  and  comio 
Niobe,  the  subject  of  the  play  cannot  be  guessed. 

*  The  comedian  Plato  also  wrote  u  comedy  under  this  title,  and  there  seem 
to  have  been  recriminations  between  the  two  poets  on  the  subject  of  plagi- 
arism. The  same  charge  was  broughtby  Aristophanes  against Eupolis(C?aii(yj[, 
553),  and  against  Bome  unknowu  jjoet  (Fr.  18  of  the  Anagyrus),  and  by  Plato 
ftgaiuBt  some  poet,  possibly  Aristopiianes  (Frag,  of  the  Ptedario). 


THE  drama:    ARISTOPHANES.  2/7 

to  life ;  Telmessiis,  we  learn  from  Cicero,^  was  famous  for  its 
augury ;  and  in  the  fragments  of  the  Horoe  we  find  Sabazius,  a 
new  god,  mentioned. ^  Other  comedies  of  this  period  probably 
are  the  Pelargi  or  Storks,  in  wliich  the  bird's  reputed  piety  was 
perhaps  contrasted  with  the  impiety  of  the  Athenians ;  the 
Gerytades,  a  play  whose  name  is  unintelligible  to  us,  but  which 
seems  to  have  had  a  subject  similar  to  that  of  the  Frogs  ;  tha 
Tagenistce  or  Men  of  the  Frying-pan,  in  which  flatterers  and 
their  cupboard  love  filled  the  main  place.  The  last  two  plays 
by  Aristophanes,  the  Cocalus  and  jEolosicon,  were  put  on  the 
stage  by  his  son  Araros.  Cocalus  was  the  king  of  the  Camicii, 
who  gave  Dsedalus  protection  against  Minos,  and  even  boiled 
Minos  to  death  in  a  bath.  The  name  .^olo-sicon  seems  to  be 
a  compound  of  the  names  of  ^olus  and  Sicon,  of  whom  the 
latter  was  a  cook  of  much  celebrity.  The  hero  of  the  play  then 
combined  probably  the  attributes  as  well  as  the  names  of  ^olus 
and  Sicon ;  and  if  nations,  like  men,  grow  more  critical  in  culi- 
nary matters  as  they  grow  older,  probably  this  tendency  was 
the  object  of  Aristophanes'  satire.  Both  the  Cocalus  and  the 
^olosicon,  according  to  the  author  of  the  Greek  life  of  Aristo- 
phanes, belonged  in  character  to  the  comedy  of  Menander  and 
Philemon.  They  had  no  chorus  or  parabasis,  and  they  had 
plots. 


APPENDICES  TO  CHAPTER  VIL 
A. — "the  wasps." 

The  discrepancies  between  the  two  longing  to  a  distinctly  higher  class 

parts  of  the  Wai^pg  have  given  rise  of  society.     Again,  Philocleon  gets 

to  the  conjecture  that  here  too,  as  into  all  sorts  of  difficulties,  and  the 

in  the  case  of  the  Clouds,  we  have  play  leaves  him  in  them.     Further, 

an    amalgamation   of  two  distinct  the  chorus  is  alternately  represented 

comedies.     This  view  is  borne  out  as   having  the  energy  and   vigour 

by  a   closer    examination    of    the  of  young  wasps  and  as  enfeebled 

comedy.     Philocleon  is  at  iirst  re-  by  old  age.     (Contrast   1060-1069 

presented  as  belonging  to  the  class  with    1070-1090,    1091-1100  with 

of  poor  dikasts,  to  whom  the  pay  1101-I121  ;  so  too  in  441-456  the 

was  of  importance,  and  then  as  be-  chorus  utterly  and   incomprehen- 

1  De  Div.  i.  41 :  Telmessus  in  Caria  est,  qua  in  urbe  excellit  haruspicum 
disci  plina. 

2  The  worship  of  Sabazius,  attacked  by  Aristophanes,  bad  become  quite 
fashionable  in  the  time  of  Theophrastus,  for  the  late-learner  (viiL)  "  when 
initiated  into  the  rites  of  Sabazius,  will  be  eager  to  acquit  bimaelf  beat  in  th« 
eyes  of  the  priest  "  (J ebb's  trans.) 


278 


HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


eibly  Viclies  the  activity  which  it 
displays  immediately  before  and  im- 
mediately after).  This  lends  colour 
to  the  conjecture  that  the  first  half 
of  the  Wasps  is  mainly  taken  from 
the  original  comedy  of  that  name  ; 
whereas  parts  of  the  first  half  and 
most  of  the  second  half  are  taken 
from  some  other  comedy — possibly 
the  Geras  or  Old  Age,  in  which,  as  in 
the  Wasps  (1333  f.  and  1351  f.),  an 
old  manismttde  young  again.  Other 
passages  which  are  probably  inter- 
polated are  the  very  inartistic  pro- 


logue scene,  8-135  '>  ^^^  scenes  wit\ 
the  supernumerary  chorus  of  boys, 
248-272  and  290-317,  who  are  not 
wanted  to  carry  the  wasps' lanterns, 
for  the  wasps  carry  them  themselves, 
218  and  246  ;  the  financial  scene, 
686-697,  in  which  the  cost  to  the 
state  of  the  dikast  system,  15a 
talents,  is  absurdly  high,  and  haa 
probably  been  transferred  from  some 
context  in  which  the  sum  repre- 
sents the  expenditure  not  on  the 
dikasts,  but  on  the  ecclesia,  the 
Boule,  tlieorica,  &c 


B. — THE    PARABA8IS. 


The  divisions  into  which  a  comedy 
falls  were  the  same  as  those  of  tra- 
gedy, with  one  exception.  In  a 
comedy,  as  in  a  tragedy,  the  ode 
which  the  chorus  sang  when  it  first 
entered  waj  called  the  Parodos ; 
those  which  it  sang  when  stand- 
ing in  its  usual  place  between  the 
altar  and  the  stage  were  called 
Stasima  ;  the  parts  between  two 
stasima  were  called  Episodes  ;  and 
that  before  the  first  stasimon  was 
the  Prologue ;  and  that  following 
the  last  stasimon  the  Exodos.  But 
the  Parabasis  was  peculiar  to  com- 
edy. The  point  at  which  the  Para- 
basis occurred  was  not  fixed  by  any 
definite  considerations,  but  was 
inserted  by  the  poet  wherever  he 
thought  the  action  of  the  comedy 
rendered  it  most  convenient.  What 
characterises  the  Parabasis  is  that  it 
bears  no  relation,  as  do  the  stasima, 
to  the  action  of  the  play,  but  ex- 
pounds the  author's  views,  as  the 
views  of  the  author,  on  any  matter 
of  interest  on  which  he  thinks  fit 
to  directly  address  the  audience.  It 
is  thus  not  only  characteristic  of 
comedy,  but  is  probably  the  oldest 
element  of  comedy.  It  seems  to  be 
a  survival  from  the  time  before 
comedy,  when,  at  the  conclusion  of 
the  choral  ode  to  Dionysus,  the 
leader  of  the  chorus,  who  was  also 
the  poet,  came  forward  and  made 
his  jests  and  comments  on  the  topics 
and  persvDS  of  the  time.     Possibly 


the  name  Parabasis  is  a  survival 
from  this  stage  in  the  origin  of 
comedy,  and  refers  to  the  "  coming 
forward  "  of  the  poet  to  deliver  his 
views ;  but  the  name  is  generally 
referred  to  the  "  march  by  "  of  the 
chorus,  when  it  left  its  post  between 
the  altar  and  the  stage  and  marched 
round  the  orchestra  by  the  specta- 
tors. A  complete  Parabasis  (in  the 
widest  sense  of  the  word)  consisted 
of  seven  parts.  Pirst  came  the 
Kommation,  a  few  lines  delivered 
by  the  Coiyphseus  dismissing  the 
actors  (who  at  this  point  left  the 
stage),  and  notifying  the  audience 
that  the  Parabasis  was  about  to  be- 
gin. Next  came  the  Parabasis  pro- 
per (in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word), 
delivered  by  the  Cor3fph8eus,  who, 
on  behalf  of  the  poet,  stated  the 
poet's  defence  of  himself  or  his 
plays,  or  criticised  his  rivals,  or 
otherwise  glorified  or  justified  him- 
self. The  Parabasis  is  generally  in 
anapjEsts  or  trochaics,  and  is  con- 
cluded by  the  Pnigos  or  Makron, 
verses  still  spoken  by  the  Cory- 
phaeus on  the  same  subject  as  the 
Parabasis,  and  gaining  their  name 
because  they  had  to  be  rattled  out 
in  one  breath,  and  thus  left  the 
Coryphaeus  breathless  and  the  audi- 
ence laughing.  These  three  parts, 
the  Kommation,  the  Parabasis,  and 
the  Pnigos,  constituted  the  first 
half  of  the  Parabasis  ;  and  here  it 
should  be  noticed  that  the  Komuia> 


THE  DRAMA  :    MIDDLE  COMEDY. 


279 


tion  and  the  Pnigo.s  were  sometimes 
dispensed  with.  The  second  half  of 
the  Parabasis  commenced  with  tlie 
Strophe,  which  was  sung  by  the 
chorus,  and  was  generally  an  ode 
to  some  god.  This  was  followed  by 
the  Epirrhema,  delivered  by  a  single 
choreutes,  probably  the  Coryphaus, 
and  ridiculing  some  public  event 
or  person.  Then,  continuing  the 
same  subject,  came  the  Antistrophe, 
sung  by  the  chorus,  and  correspond- 
ing in  metre  and  music  to  the 
strophe.  Finally  came  the  Ante- 
pirrhema,  delivered  by  a  single 
choreutes,  and  corresponding,  as 
the  name  implies,  to  the  epir- 
rhema :  this  concluded  the  Parabasis. 
AVhether  the  strophe  and  anti- 
strophe  were  sung  each  by  the 
whole  chorus,  or  by  the  two  hemi- 
choria  respectively  is  uncertain.  If 
by  the  whole  chorus,  then  probably 
the  epirrhema  and  the  antepir- 
rhema  were  delivered  by  the  Cory- 
phaeus ;  if  by  the  hemichoria,  then 
probably  the  leaders  of  the  hemi- 
choiia  delivered  the  epirrhema  and 


antepirrhema.  Sometimes  there  are 
two  Parabases  in  one  play.  Thi» 
seems  to  be  a  survival  from  the 
time  when  the  chorus  was  the  domi- 
nant element  in  the  worship  of 
Dionysus,  and  the  actors  were  only 
relicts  to  the  chorus. 

The  Parabasis  of  the  Acharniant 
is  divided  as  follows  : — 

First  Parabasis  :  —  Kommation, 
626-627.  Parabasis,  628-658.  Pni- 
gos,  659-664.  Strophe,  665-675. 
Epirrhema,  676-691.  Antistrophe, 
692-701.     Antepirrhema,  702-718. 

Second  Parabasis  : — Kommation, 
1143-I149.  Strophe,  1150-1161. 
Antistrophe,  1162-1173. 

Those  of  the  Knights  as  follows : — 

First  Parabasis  :  —  Kommation, 
498-506.  Parabasis,  507-546.  Pni- 
gos,  547-55°-  Strophe,  551-564. 
Epirrhema,  565-580.  Antistrophe, 
581-594.     Antepirrhema,  595-610. 

Second  Parabasis  :  —  Strophe, 
1263-1273.  Epirrhema,  1274-1289. 
Antistrophe,  1 290-1 299.  Ajitepir- 
rhema,  1300-1315, 


CHAPTER    VIII. 


MIDDLE   COMEDY. 


In  order  to  understand  how  the  Middle  Comedy  differs,  on  the 
one  hand,  from  Old  Comedy,  and,  on  the  other,  from  the  New, 
it  is  necessary  to  understand,  first,  the  fundamental  identity  of 
these  three  stages  of  comedy.  They  are  fundamentally  identical, 
because  they  are  one  and  all  Attic  Comedy,  and  one  and  all 
reflect  the  manners  and  the  life  of  the  age  in  which  they  occur. 
It  is  true  that  the  comedy  of  Aristophanes  does  not  reflect  the 
philosophy  of  Socrates  or  the  policy  of  Cleon  with  historical 
accuracy,  but  it  does  what  is  as  valuable — it  reflects  them  as 
Aristophanes  saw  them  ;  and  though  the  Middle  and  New 
Comedy  are  mirrors  of  their  time,  they  are  shattered  mirrors, 
for  we  possess  no  complete  play  belonging  to  these  stages  of 
Attic  Comedy,  but  only  fragments.  Tlie  three  stages  of  comedy, 
then,  are  alike,  inasmuch  as  they  all  reflect  the  Athens  of  then 
time  :  the  later  forms  developed  out  of  the  earlier,  and  they 


280  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

differ  because  Athens  differed  at  these  three  periods.     This  is 
Aot  the  sole  cause  of  difference,  but  it  is  the  one  which  we  will 

first  consider. 

Rouglily  speaking,  the  Old  Comedy  ends  at  the  battle  of  .(Egos' 
potami,  and  the  Middle  Comedy  at  the  battle  of  Chaeronea. 
From  the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  to  the  battle  of  Chad- 
ronea,  Athens  was  still  free,  although  she  was  no  longer  the 
first  among  the  cities  of  Greece.  After  "  that  dishonest  vic- 
tory, at  ChEeronea,  fatal  to  liberty,"  she,  with  the  rest  of  Greece, 
was  no  longer  free.  The  period,  then,  between  ^gospotami 
and  Chaeronea  is  politically  and  socially  much  more  akin  to 
the  time  preceding  than  to  the  time  following  it.  The  period 
between  ^gospotami  and  Chaeronea  is  the  last  period  of  the 
creative  power  of  Attic  literature  ;  after  Chaeronea  begins  the 
imitative  age.  The  Middle  Comedy,  then,  bears  more  resem- 
blance to  the  Old  than  to  the  New.  The  comedy  of  Aristo- 
phanes drew  its  material  from  everything  which  had  an  interest 
for  the  citizens  of  Athens,  politics,  philosophy,  religion,  science, 
literature,  art,  and  scandal.  The  New  Comedy  drew  its  material 
from  that  which  most  interested  every  Athenian  of  the  time, 
his  private  life  ;  it  was  a  comedy  of  manners,  and  its  subject 
was  practically  love  only.  Between  these  two  well-defined 
stages  came  the  Middle  Comedy,  which,  like  the  period  it  re- 
flects, was  a  stage  of  transition.  Like  the  New  Comedy,  it  had 
its  love-plays,  but  its  subjects  were  mostly  the  same  as  those 
of  the  Old  Comedy.  Plato  and  the  Academy  took  the  place  of 
Socrates ;  Euripides  was  still  attacked,  although  by  that  time 
there  were  to  be  found  also  comedians  to  defend  him  ;  mytho- 
logy was  still  a  fertile  source  of  parody  and  ridicule  ;  but  from 
politics  the  Middle  Comedy  drew  but  scantily  or  not  at  all 

For  this  difference  between  the  Old  and  the  Middle  Comedy, 
the  reason  always  given  is  that  after  the  Peloponnesian  war 
Athens  was  politically  played  out.  Aristophanes,  it  is  said, 
wrote  political  comedies  because  politics  interested  his  audi- 
ence ;  the  writers  of  the  Middle  Comedy,  like  those  of  the 
New,  did  not  write  political  comedies,  for  the  reason  that  their 
hearers  did  not  take  an  interest  in  politics.  But  this  would 
not  seem  to  be  the  case :  never  was  the  Assembly  better  at- 
tended, and  never  had  the  oratory  of  its  speakers  attained  to 
the  level  which  it  reached  in  the  period  that  culminates  in 
Demosthenes.  Some  other  reason  must  be  sought  why  politics 
were  not  reflected  in  the  Middle  Comedy,  and  the  same  reason 
must  explain  why  the  litigious  tendencies  of  the  Athenians, 
Btionger  at  this  time  than  when  Aristophanes  wrote  the  Wasps^ 


THE  DRAMA  :    MIDDLE  COMEDY.  28  I 

fiuTiished  no  more  matter  for  the  Middle  Comedy  than  did  poli- 
tics. The  explanation  is  that  the  Assembly  and  the  Law  Courta 
were  not  less,  hut  more  interesting  than  ever,  and  this  was  the 
result  of  the  growth  of  oratory.  The  first  of  the  Ten  Attic 
Orators  was  Antiphon,  whose  name  is  associated  with  the  esta- 
blishment of  the  Thirty  Tyrants  towards  the  end  of  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  war ;  and  we  may  well  say  that  the  period  of  the 
Middle  Comedy  is  the  time  of  the  Orators.  For  the  develop- 
ment of  oratory  it  is  necessary  that  the  audience  should  be 
critical.  Badly  educated  hearers  demand  speeches  not  beyond 
their  own  powers  of  comprehension  and  appreciation.  The 
growth,  therefore,  of  oratory  in  the  period  between  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  war  and  the  battle  of  Chseronea  would  of  itself  prove 
that  politics  deeply  engaged  the  attention  of  the  Athenians  of 
that  time.  But  in  order  to  understand  fully  how  much  they 
engaged  the  attention  of  the  Athenians,  it  is  necessary  to  re- 
member that  the  Athenians  were  not  a  nation  of  readers  ;  they 
took  in  their  literature  through  their  ears,  and  not  through  their 
eyes.  Further,  the  largest  audience  which  a  writer  could  get 
was  the  Assembly  or  the  Law  Courts.  Again,  at  this  time, 
with  the  exception  of  Plato,  the  literary  genius  of  Athens  was 
all  directed  to  oratory.  From  these  considerations  it  follows 
that  the  Athenians,  who  all  the  year  got  their  literary  food 
from  the  Law  Courts  and  the  Assembly,  required  a  change  of 
diet  at  the  festivals  of  Dionysus ;  and  the  writers  of  comedy 
again,  doubtless,  felt  not  only  that  this  change  was  demanded 
from  them,  if  they  wished  to  be  successful,  but  also  that  they 
were  unable  to  rival  the  speakers  in  the  Assembly  and  the 
Courts  on  their  own  ground.  They  had  before  them  the  warn- 
ing of  tragedy.  Writers  of  tragedy  had  indeed  entered  on  the 
contest ;  Euripides  had  imported  into  tragedy  much  that  was 
only  appropriate  in  lawsuits,  but  the  measure  of  his  ill  success 
may  show  us  how  little  likely  it  is  that  his  successors  in  tragedy, 
lacking  his  genius,  were  successful  where  he  failed.  The  main 
reason  then  that,  in  not  reflecting  politics,  the  Middle  Comedy 
differed  from  the  Old  was  that  politics  engaged  the  attention  of 
the  Athenians  more  than  ever,  but  engaged  them  only  in  the 
Assembly,  and  when  treated  oratorically. 

But  the  Peloponnesian  war  had  broken  the  spirit  of  the 
Athenians  thus  far ;  thej'^  would  talk  in  the  Assembly  but  not 
act  in  the  field ;  and  this  fact  is  of  importance  as  explaining 
why,  although  the  Middle  Comedy  ceased  to  be  political,  it  yet 
did  not  become  the  comedy  of  private  life,  as  did  the  New.  In 
the  time  of  the  Old  Comedy,  the  public  duties  of  a  citizen  occu- 


282  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

pied  most  of  his  life,  for  he  had  not  cnly  to  take  in  the  Assem 
bly  his  share  of  governing  the  country,  but  he  had  at  all  timea 
to  be  prepared  to  fight  for  his  country.  There  was,  however,  a 
tendency  to  differentiate  these  functions,  which  was  worked  out 
in  the  time  of  the  New  Comedy.  Pericles  was  both  a  general 
and  the  leader  of  the  Assembly.  By  the  time  of  Demosthenes, 
it  was  impossible  to  combine  these  two  functions  ;  Demosthenes 
was  an  orator,  but  not  a  general.  The  same  tendency  was  at  Avork 
amongst  the  body  of  Athenian  citizens  as  amongst  its  leaders ; 
and  in  the  time  of  Demosthenes  the  military  duties  of  the 
citizens  were  frequently  delegated  to  paid  mercenaries.  But 
although  the  Athenian  citizen  of  the  time  of  the  Middle  Comedy 
was  putting  off  his  military  duties,  he  had  not  yet  become,  as 
after  Cheeronea — when  the  employment  of  mercenaries  had  re- 
sulted in  the  loss  of  freedom — he  did  become,  wholly  absorbed 
in  the  relations  of  private  life.  Although  he  did  not  go  in  per- 
son abroad  on  foreign  service,  and  consequently  took  but  little 
interest  in  what  was  going  on  in  Olynthus  or  in  Thrace,  he 
still  had  a  vote  and  a  voice  in  determining  the  destinies  of 
his  country,  and  this  is  the  reason  why  at  that  time  comedy 
could  not  exclusively  devote  itself  to  private  life. 

"We  began  by  saying  that  the  difference  in  the  ages  they 
Inflect  is  not  the  only  difference  between  the  three  stages  of 
comedj\  One  obvious  distinction  is,  that  the  chorus  is  practi- 
cally absent  from  the  New  and  the  Middle  Comedy.  Originally 
the  duty  of  providing  and  paying  for  a  chorus  fell  upon  some 
rich  citizen  chosen  by  the  "  inspectors  "  ^  of  the  tribe  to  repre- 
sent his  tribe.  The  Peloponnesian  war  impoverished  Athens, 
and  in  consequence  sometimes,  even  in  the  time  of  the  Old 
Comedy,  no  choregus  and  no  chorus  were  appointed  for  comedy. 
What  was  the  custom  between  the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war  and  the  battle  of  Chseronea  we  do  not  know,  but  the  diffi- 
culty which  was  experienced  in  providing  a  chorus  for  tragedy 
— the  expense  was  thrown  on  two  members  of  the  same  tribe 
or  of  two  tribes — makes  it  probable  that  a  chorus  was  only 
rarely  provided  during  the  period  of  the  Middle  Comedy.  From 
B.C.  306  the  evidence  of  inscriptions  shows  that  it  was  no  longer 
the  custom  to  elect  a  choregus  from  a  single  tribe  or  from  two 
tribes,  but  to  elect  an  agonothetes,  who  took  (or  might  decline 
to  take)  the  duty  of  producing  both  the  tragedy  and  the  comedy, 
sometimes  furnishing  a  chorus  and  sometimes  not.  Some  years 
no  agonothetes  probably  was  elected,  and  some  years  he  would 
furnish  no  chorus  either  tragic  or  comic,  but  si  'nply  produce  a 


THE  drama:  middle  comedy.  283 

tragedy  and  a  comedy  without  a  chorus  ;  and  sometimes,  we 
may  ccnjecture,  he  would  furnish  a  chorus  for  tiagedy  but  not 
for  comedy.  On  the  whole,  then,  it  would  seem  that  it  was 
rather  the  exception  than  the  rule  for  plays  of  the  Middle  and 
New  Comedies  to  l>ave  a  chorus. 

As  to  the  cause  of  this,  Horace  has  given  wide  currency  to 
the  idea  that  the  chorus  was  suspended  by  law  on  account  of 
the  license  of  the  poets  of  the  Old  Comedy.  But  there  is  no 
warrant  for  this ;  nor  is  the  reason  wliolly  to  be  found  in  the 
impoverishment  of  the  citizens  ;  for  although  the  Peloponnesian 
war  may  have  produced  some  distress,  in  the  time  of  the  New 
Comedy  Athens  seems  to  have  enjoyed  considerable  material 
prosperity.  The  reason  is  that  the  growth  of  the  drama  pushed 
the  chorus  on  one  side.  The  drama  at  Athens  had  reached  the 
point  at  which  further  development  was  impossible,  if  the  chorus 
was  still  to  be  retained.  Euripides,  in  liis  attempt  to  show 
"  the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his  form  and  pressure," 
was  perpetually  hampered  by  the  chorus.  He  wished  to  take 
the  forward  step  which  afterwards  was  taken  by  the  drama,  but 
it  was  made  impossible  for  him  to  do  so  by  the  restrictions 
under  which  tragedy  as  it  was  conceived  at  Athens  lay.  The 
development  of  modern  drama  could  only  come  after  those 
restrictions  had  been  removed.  From  some  of  them  comedy  at 
Athens  had  at  all  times  been  free.  The  tragic  poet  was  bound, 
ibe  comic  poet  was  not,  to  adhere  to  myths.  Tragedy  had 
always  to  remember  that  it  was  a  religious  function,  but  comedy 
was  apt  to  forget  its  religious  functions.  To  reflect  the  life  of 
the  time  was  almost  as  essential  to  comedy  as  it  was  inconsistent 
with  tragedy.  Science,  rhetoric,  and  philosophy,  when  intro- 
duced by  Euripides  are  felt  to  jar  with  the  mythical  scenes  in 
which  they  are  placed ;  but  in  comedy  no  such  discrepancy  is 
felt.  The  characters  which  Euripides  drew  after  average  Athe- 
nians are  ill  at  ease  when  appearing  under  the  garb  and  title 
of  heroes  of  mythology ;  but  in  the  comedy  of  Menander  such 
characters  moved  in  the  same  surroundings  as  they  did  in  life. 
The  one  obstacle  which  prevented  the  illusion  of  comedy,  when 
it  undertook  to  represent  real  life,  from  being  perfect  was  the 
chorus.  This  doubtless  was  first  felt  by  the  writers  of  comedy, 
who  would,  in  consequence,  put  but  little  pressure  on  a  reluctant 
agonothetes  or  choregus  to  produce  a  chorus.  The  people,  on 
the  other  hand,  soon  came  to  appreciate  the  superiority  of  comedy 
without  a  chorus,  and  consequently  showed  no  anxiety  to  elect 
an  agonothetes  to  provide  a  chorus ;  or,  if  a  chorus  were  pro- 
vided, they  paid  such  scant  attention  to  the  choral  odes,  that 


284  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

there  was  not  much  inducement  for  a  wealthy  citizen  again  to 

furnish  comedy  with  a  chorus. 

What  the  difference  hetween  Middle  and  New  Comedy  was 
with  regard  to  the  chorus,  we  have  no  direct  evidence  to  show ; 
we  are  reduced  to  conjecture,  and  it  seems  probable  that  in  this, 
as  in  other  respects,  the  Middle  Comedy  was  transitional,  aid 
that  the  chorus  gradually  decreased  in  importance,  being  much 
less  frequent  in  Middle  than  in  Old  Comedy,  and  practically 
disappearing  in  the  New.  We  do  not  know  certainly  that  there 
■was  no  chorus  in  the  New  Comedy  ;  indeed,  one  authority 
speaks  of  Menander  as  finally  abandoning  the  chorus,  which 
would  imply  that  until  his  time  the  chorus  still  survived,  though 
with  little  practical  importance.  This  is  what  might  have  been 
expected,  and  is  illuminating  for  the  history  of  the  Greek 
drama.  Euripides,  in  his  attempt  to  develop  tragedy  in  direc- 
tions untrodden  by  his  predecessors,  devoted  much  labour  to  the 
production  of  more  complex  plots,  and  to  the  working  out  of 
domestic  scenes  as  a  subject  for  tragedy.  In  both  these  experi- 
ments he  was  clogged  by  the  chorus.  It  remained  for  Menander 
to  throw  off  this  clog  altogether.  If  any  confirmation  were 
needed  of  the  fact  that  Menander  took  up  the  struggle  where 
Euripides  left  it,  it  would  be  found  in  the  similarity  of  the 
circumstances  of  the  two  poets ;  for  the  comedian,  like  the 
tragedian,  was  impelled  to  put  the  chorus  on  one  side  by  the 
development  of  his  dramji  in  the  direction  of  domestic  scenes 
and  complexity  of  plot.  Greek  drama  originated  in  the  chorus, 
and  finally  threw  it  aside  altogether. 

Horace  is  also  responsible  for  the  idea  that  the  Middle  and 
New  Comedy  differ  from  the  Old  in  being  less  abusive,  and 
that  this  fact  was  due  to  the  action  of  the  law.  It  is  not,  how- 
ever, exactly  true  that  personalities  were  wanting  in  the  Middle 
Comedy,  though  they  were  in  the  New ;  nor  is  it  true  that 
covert  attacks  were  made  upon  individuals,  who  were  pilloried 
under  fictitious  names  on  the  stage.  We  have  the  titles  of 
fifty  or  sixty  plays  of  the  Middle  Comedy  which  take  their  name* 
from  real  persons,  and  although  doubtless  not  all  of  these  were 
attacked,  some  probably  were.  But  there  was  a  difference 
between  the  Old  and  Middle  Comedy  in  the  mode  of  attack,  as 
we  learn  from  Aristotle  :  that  of  the  Old  Comedy  was  abuse ; 
that  of  the  Middle,  raillery ;  and  thus  in  this  respect  also  the 
Middle  Comedy  was  but  the  stage  which  Attic  Comedy  passed 
through  in  its  transition  from  the  Old  to  the  New. 

In  point  of  plot,  the  difference  between  the  Old  and  the  New 
Comedy  is  unmistakable;  but  with  regard  to  the  Middle  Comedy 


THE  DRAMA  :    MIDDLE  COMEDY.  28$ 

it  is  harder  to  form  an  opinion.  A  play  of  the  Old  Comedj 
consisted  of  a  series  of  scenes  having  no  connection  with  each 
other,  but  deriving  their  unity  from  their  connection  with  the 
central  idea  of  the  piece,  which  was  some  such  simple  theme  as 
that  "  peace  is  desirable."  The  plays  of  Menander,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  an  intrigue  and  a  plot ;  the  scenes  developed  out  of 
each  other  and  ended  in  a  denoiiment.  This  is  indeed  almost 
implied  in  the  statement  that  his  were  generally  love-comedies, 
which  naturally  result  in  a  marriage  after  the  obstacles  to  the 
course  of  true  love  have  been  removed.  In  two  respects  Men- 
ander's  treatment  of  the  plot  reminds  us  of  Euripides  ;  he  em- 
ployed a  prologue,  and,  if  not  a  deus  ex  machina,  at  any  rate 
artificial  means  of  proving  at  the  last  that,  for  instance,  the 
heroine,  hitherto  supposed  to  be  a  hetsera,  is  really  a  free-born 
Athenian — a  discovery  which  was  the  indispensable  condition 
of  the  marriages  with  which  his  plays  ended.  So  far  as  our 
scanty  information  extends,  there  seems  to  be  no  evidence  that 
prologues  were  common,  if  used  at  all,  in  Middle  Comedy,  though 
"  recognitions  "  certainly  occurred ;  and  as  the  subjects  of  the 
Middle  Comedy  more  frequently  resembled  those  of  the  Old 
than  those  of  the  New,  it  seems  probable  that  the  treatment 
also  rather  resembled  that  of  the  Old.  Many  of  the  Middle 
Comedies  do  indeed  take  their  name  from  hetserse ;  but  they 
seem  to  have  been  treated  of  in  those  plays  in  their  capacity  of 
public  characters  rather  than,  as  in  the  New,  in  connection  with 
private  life.  A  fiirther  consideration  tending  to  show  that  the 
plots  of  the  New  Comedy  were  superior  in  interest  and  illusion 
to  those  of  the  Middle  is  the  fact  that  by  the  time  of  the  New 
Comedy  Aristotle's  works  on  the  drama  were  beginning  to  have 
their  effect.  The  period  after  Chgeronea  was  one  of  study  of  the 
great  dramatists,  of  reflection  on  their  methods,  and  of  conscious 
employment  of  the  knowledge  thus  gained.  Aristotle  laid  it 
down  in  the  Poetics  that  the  plot  was  the  most  important 
element  of  a  play,  and  Menander  is  reported  to  have  said  on 
some  occasion  that  his  play  was  all  but  ready  ;  he  had  worked 
out  the  plot,  and  had  only  the  verses  to  write. 

In  respect  of  the  characters  put  on  the  stage  by  the  Middle 
and  New  Comedy,  there  seems  to  have  been  little  difference. 
Both  show  a  resemblance  to  Sicilian  comedy,  which  might  be 
expected  from  the  similarity  of  the  circumstances  under  which 
the  later  Athenian  comedy  and  that  of  Epicharmus  were  pro- 
duced. Epicharmus  was  precluded  from  taking  political  sub- 
jects, and  consequently  sketched  his  characters  from  the  society 
in  which  he  foxmd  himself.     These  characters,  however,  weri 


286  HISTORY  OF  GEEEK  LITERATURE. 

not  individuals,  but  types  ;  and  in  tliis  respect  the  writers  of  the 
Middle  and  New  Comedy  resemble  Epicharmus.  The  parasites, 
the  braggarts,  the  boors,  the  fish-dealers,  the  lovers,  the  mis- 
tresses, the  cooks,  and  the  slaves  of  the  later  Attic  Comedy  are 
all  types,  not  individuals,  and  are  most  of  them  types  which 
had  occurred  previously  in  tlie  works  of  Epicharmus.  How  fat 
these  characters  were  from  possessing  individuality  we  may 
understand  when  we  remember  that  each  of  these  types  had  its 
own  mask,  and  that,  e.g.  the  parasite,  in  whatever  play  by  what- 
ever author  he  appeared,  was  recognised  the  moment  he  entered 
the  stage  by  the  mask  he  wore.  When  a  mask  appeared  with 
a  dark  complexion,  thick  lips,  and  a  flat  nose,  everybody  knew 
that  he  was  the  Boor ;  when  another  entered  with  a  dark  com- 
plexion, a  hooked  nose,  and  a  beaming  appearance,  with  a  dash 
of  the  prize-fighter  in  it,^  the  audience  knew  without  being  told 
that  he  was  the  Parasite.  The  nearest  approach  to  individuality 
was  that  these  species  were  in  some  cases  divided  into  sub- 
species. Thus  the  young  hetaera  wore  a  simple  fillet  round  her 
hair,  the  elderly  hetaira  side  ringlets,  the  expensive  one  much 
gold  in  her  hair,  and  so  on  ;  which  shows  the  care  that  had  been 
devoted  to  working  out  this  character.  Although  the  circum- 
stances under  which  the  later  comedians  at  Athens  wrote  were 
much  the  same  as  with  Epicharmus,  and  would  lead  to  the  same 
sort  of  work,  probably  the  Attic  comedians  borrowed  directly 
from  Epicharmus  ;  for  we  find  them  in  the  Middle  Comedy 
also  adopting  the  parodies  of  mythological  subjects  which  Epi- 
charmus had  instituted  with  great  success.  These,  however, 
practically  disappeared  in  the  New  Comedy  ;  and  with  regard 
to  character-drawing,  the  difference  seems  to  have  been  that 
Menander  and  his  contemporaries  attained  to  greater  skill  than 
their  predecessors.  Unfortunately,  we  cannot  judge  for  our- 
selves on  this  point ;  but  the  "  Characters  "  of  Theophrastus, 
which  date  from  the  same  time  as  the  New  Comedy,  are  in  all 
probability  work  of  the  same  stamp  as  the  character-drawing  of 
Menander ;  and  in  the  Boastful  Man  of  Theophrastus  we  pro- 
bably have  something  very  like  the  Boaster  of  comedy. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  poets  and  plays  of  the  Middle  Comedy 
comes  from  grammarians,  lexicographers,  writers  of  anthologies, 
and  largely  from  Athenajus,  who  says  that  he  had  read  more 
than  eight  hundred  plays  of  the  Middle  Comedy.  Unfortunately, 
Athenoius  concentrated  his  attention,  in  the  "  Deipnosophists," 
on  culinary  matters,   and    consetjuently   his   quotations   relate 

^  T(^  bk  irapacrirtfi  /mdWov  Kariaye  tci  Sira  (prize-fif;hters  in  Greet  s  gol 
their  ears  broken),  Pollux  iv.  148,  from  which  the  above  is  taken. 


thedkama:  middle  comedy.  287 

chiefly  to  the  kitchen,  and  leave  us  in  ignorance  of  other  and 
important  points.  We  gain  some  information  on  the  difference 
between  the  three  stages  of  comedy  from  the  work  "On  the 
Difference  of  the  Comedies  "  by  Platonius,  a  Greek  rhetorician 
of  uncertain  date.  The  value  of  the  information,  with  regard 
to  the  lives  and  works  of  the  comedians,  which  we  get  from 
grammarians,  scholiasts,  and  lexicographers,  varies  in  each  case. 
These  writers  had  at  times  good  authorities  to  draw  fiom.  The 
Didascaliae  of  Aristotle  we  have  mentioned.  Theophrastus, 
the  greatest  of  Aristotle's  pupils,  wrote  a  work  "  On  Comedy  " 
which  is  mentioned  by  Diogenes  Laertius  ^  and  Athenseus.^ 
The  latter  author  also  mentions  ^  a  similar  work  by  Chamaeleon, 
another  pupil  of  Aristotle.  Philochorus  belonged  to  about  the 
same  date  (b.c.  280),  and  wrote  a  work  on  the  dramatic  contests 
at  Athens,  which  is  referred  to  by  Suidas  and  probably  quoted 
in  Athenseus.^  At  Alexandria,  Calliraachus,  the  librarian  of 
Alexandria,  composed  a  catalogue  of  didascaliae ;  ^  and  his  suc- 
cessor, Eratosthenes,  wrote  a  book  in  twelve  volumes  "  On 
Comedy,"  quoted  by  Photius.^  At  Pergamum,  Crates,  Carystius, 
and  Herodicus  "^  devoted  themselves  to  the  history  of  the  drama  ; 
and  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  Didymus  wrote  works  on  comedy 
from  which  Meineke^  thinks  Hesychius,  Photius,  and  others 
largely  borrowed. 

The  most  important  poet  of  the  Middle  Comedy  was  Alexis, 
who,  although  he  was  a  citizen  of  Athens,  was  born  at  Thurii, 
probably  about  B.C.  390,  and  died  not  before  B.C.  288.  He  is 
said  to  have  written  245  plays,  and  we  have  fragments  of  about 
140  of  them.  These  are,  however,  not  sufficient  to  enable  us 
to  form  any  very  good  judgment  of  his  poetical  powers,  and 
unfortunately  we  have  in  no  ancient  writer  any  detailed  criti- 
cism of  his  work.  The  great  age  which  he  reached  carried 
him  into  the  time  of  the  New  Comedy,  and  he  presents  some 
of  its  features ;  but,  on  the  whole,  he  belongs  undoubtedly 
to  the  Middle  Comedy.  We  find  some  political  allusions  in 
his  fragments ;  for  instance,  he  joins  with  the  Macedonian 
party  in  making  jest  of  the  distinction  which  was  made  in  the 
pseudo-Demosthenic  speech  on  the  Halonnesus  between  Philip's 
"giving"  the  island  of  Halonnesus  to  the  Athenians  and  "giving 

•  V.  2.  47.  ^  vi.  26 ID.  3  ix.  374A  and  406D.  *  xi.  464P. 

•  vlva^  rCiv  Kard.  xpovovs  Kal  dir'  dpxTJs  yevo/J.4i>wv  didajKaKiuv. 

•  Sub  voce  eijKXeia 

^  Crat.es  composed  di'aypa<pa.s  dpa/idruv,  Ath.  viii.  336E  ;  Carystius,  irept 
SiSaffKaXiCiv,  Ath.  vi.  235E  ;  Herodicus,  Kw/ufSo'Lifieva,  Ath.  xiii.  586A  ;  and 
Harpocration,  s.v.  Zivlottt}.  '>  H.  C.  G.  I4.. 


288  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

it  back  "  to  them.  Again,  the  titles  of  some  of  his  plays,  e.g.  the 
Helen,  the  Seven  against  Thebes,  &c.,  show  that  tliey  were  on 
mythological  subjects — a  kind  of  play  which  the  Middle  Comeiy 
borrowed  from  Epicharmus,  and  was  fertile  in.  It  is  also  a 
mark  that  he  belongs  to  the  Middle  Comedy  that  he  has  allu- 
sions to  the  philosophers  Plato,  Aristippus,  Xenocrates,  and 
makes  joke  of  the  vegetarianism  of  the  Pythagoreans.^  Fur- 
ther, he  has  allusions  to  literary  men  (e.g.  Araros,  the  son  of 
Aristophanes),  and  parodies  Euripides.  The  quality  which  ia 
most  conspicuous  in  the  fragments  of  Alexis  is  his  refinement. 

Next  to  Alexis,  the  most  important  poet  of  the  Middle 
Comedy  was  Antiphanes,  who  was  born  about  B.C.  408,  began 
to  produce  plays  about  B.c.  388,  and  died  about  B.C.  332. 
There  is  some  doubt  as  to  the  place  of  his  birth  ;  but  it  is  im- 
portant as  showing  the  decline  of  the  creative  powers  of  Athens, 
that  Antiphanes,  like  Alexis,  was  not  an  Athenian.  The  num- 
ber of  plays  which  he  wrote  is  uncertain,  statements  varying 
from  280  to  360,  but  we  still  possess  the  titles  or  fragments  of 
about  150.  The  number  was,  at  any  rate,  so  large,  that  it  is 
probable  not  all  the  comedies  of  Antiphanes  were  intended  to 
be  produced  on  the  stage.  Such  plays  as  he  wrote  without 
intending  to  produce  them  on  the  stage  he  probably  wrote  to  be 
read ;  not  to  be  read  by  single  individuals,  but  to  be  read  aloud 
by  the  possessor  of  the  MS.  to  a  circle  of  friends.  This  mode 
of  publicity  was  the  one  adopted  by  the  rhetorician  Isocrates, 
who  lived  at  the  same  time  as  Antiphanes,  though  he  was 
somewhat  older  (B.C.  436—338)  than  the  comedian.  It  was  also 
adopted  by  another  contemporary,  the  tragedian  Chaeremon,  who 
was  the  author  of  the  practice  of  composing  tragedies  which  were 
meant  solely  to  be  read  in  this  manner.*''  Tliis  practice,  which 
thus  was  becoming  so  common  in  tlie  period  between  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  war  and  the  battle  of  Chseronea,  is  interesting  as 
being  the  transition  stage  through  which  the  Greeks  passed  from 
being  a  nation  which  received  its  literature  through  its  ears  to 
becoming  a  nation  of  readers.^  The  evidence  afforded  by  tho 
fragments  of  Antiphanes  accords  with  the  verdict  of  antiquity, 

^  Ath.  vi.  223P. 

*  Writers  of  such  tragedies  were  called  dvayvu^TiKoL 

'  The  comedies  of  Antiphanes  were  probably  recited  at  banquets,  as 
those  of  Menander  seem  to  have  been  afterwards,  iK  to'utov  .  .  .  'M€va.v8p(f 
...  TO.  avfj-irbaia  x^P^"  ^SwKef,  Pint.  Mor.  818  :  65^  M^cavSpos  yuerd 
\aplTij3V  fidXiffra  eavrbv  avrapKr)  irapicyyjqKev,  iv  Oedrpoi^,  iv  Siarpi^ais,  iw 
ffvixiroaloii,  avdyvwcr/jia  Kal  fidOrifia  Kal  dywvifffia  KOLvbrarov  &v  t)  'EXXdt 
ivfjvox^  KoiKCiv  tiapix^v  Trjf  rolrian>,  ib.  1040.  So,  too,  p.  S67  and  />« 
Vit.  Pud,  xvl 


THE  drama:  middle  comedy.  289 

that  Antiphanes  was  a  graceful  and  perspicuous  writer.  The 
subjects  of  his  plays,  so  far  as  they  are  indicated  by  the  titles, 
were  the  ordinary  subjects  of  Middle  Comedy.  The  number  of 
burlesques  on  mythology  was  considerable  among  his  plays,  e.g. 
the  Adonis,  Deucalion,  Omphale,  Orpheus,  &c.  Parodies  of  the 
tragedians  were  also  numerous,  to  judge  from  the  titles,  e.g.  the 
Alcestis,  BacclicB,  Medea,  Philoctetes,  Athamas,  &c.  The  frag- 
ments, again,  contain  allusions  to  and  parodies  on  Euripides  ^ 
and  Sophocles. 2  The  titles  of  some  plays  also  indicate  clearly 
that  they  contained  literary  criticism,  e.g.  Poetry,  Sappho,^  &c. 
From  the  Poetry  there  survives  a  fragment*  of  considerable  in- 
terest for  the  history  of  the  drama,  in  which  Antiphanes  com- 
plains that  whereas  the  tragedian  takes  for  the  subject  of  his 
plays  myths  known  to  all  the  audience,  and  consequently  has 
not  to  go  to  the  trouble  of  explaining  the  situation  at  the  be- 
ginning of  his  play,  or  of  narrating  the  antecedents  of  his  char- 
acters, the  hard-worked  comedian  has  to  rely  for  everything  on 
his  own  powers  of  invention  and  of  conveying  the  necessary 
information  to  his  audience.  Another  feature  of  the  Middle 
Comedy,  inherited  from  the  Old,  and  distinguishing  it  from 
the  Kew,  which  occurs  in  the  plays  of  Antiphanes,  is  the  ridi- 
cule of  philosophy.  Plato  and  his  school  come  in  for  the 
satire  which  was  levelled  by  the  Old  Comedy  at  Socrates.  Ex- 
ternals still  catch  the  comedian's  attention ;  but  it  is  the 
neatness,  no  longer  the  negligence,  of  philosophers'  attire  which 
furnishes  matter  for  jest — a  fact  which  harmonises  with  the 
stories  told  of  the  greatest  of  Plato's  pupils,  Aristotle,  to  the 
effect  that  he  was  foppish  in  dress,  and  carried  his  "fads"  so 
far  as  to  cause  it  to  be  understood  that  he  expected  people  who 
dined  with  him  to  come  washed.  Thus  Antiphanes  describes  an 
old  gentleman  wearing  a  white  mantle,  beautiful  brown  tunic, 
soft  cap,  elegantly  balanced  cane — in  fine,  the  Academy  in  per- 
son. It  is  not,  however,  solely  the  philosopher's  attire  which  is 
made  fun  of ;  his  philosophy  also  is  satirised. 

Other  points  in  which  Antiphanes  shows  the  common  stamp 
of  the  Middle  Comedy  are  that  he  has  some  mild  political  allu- 
sions ;  that  he  is  sarcastic  on  the  matter  of  marriage,  e.g.  *'  He  is 
married.  B.  "What !  married !  and  I  left  him  walking  about 
alive ; "  he  is  sarcastic  also  on  women  in  general :  you  may  as 
well,  he  says,  proclaim  a  secret  by  the  town-crier  as  tell  it  to 

i  E.g,  Traumatias  i  (Mein.  F.  C.  M.  120). 

•  E.g.  Antig.  712  is  parodied  Incert.  10, 

•  And  the  TpirayuvuTTris. 

•  F.  C.  M.  105. 


290  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LHERATURE. 

a  woman.  The  practice  of  asking  riddles,  which  is  ridiculed 
frequently  in  Middle  Comedy,  is  also  illustrated  in  Antiphares. 
The  Parasite  is  drawn  in  some  of  the  fragments  that  remain  to 
us  with  much  care  ;  he  requires  no  more  invitation  to  dinner 
than  does  a  fly,  and  it  is  as  hard  to  get  him  away  as  to  get  him 
out  of  a  well ;  resentment  he  cannot  feel ;  his  amiabiliiy  is  in- 
exhaustible, his  appreciation  for  your  jokes  unlimited ;  he  wishes 
his  friends  nothing  but  prosperity.  The  Parasite's  own  view  of 
the  matter  is  that  he  renders  innumerable  services  to  his  friends, 
is  a  regular  earthquake  at  forcing  doors,  a  thunderbolt  in  fight, 
a  slip-knot  for  strangling  inconvenient  people,  and  ready  with 
his  sworn  testimony  on  any  matter  for  the  service  of  his  friend. 
True,  some  people  laugh  at  him ;  but  they  are  only  young 
men,  and  he  has  the  consciousness  of  his  own  good  services. 
Wliat  life  is  so  happy  as  his,  whose  most  arduous  occupation 
is  to  smile,  to  joke,  and  drink  deep  1  The  Parasite  himself,  at 
any  rate,  ranks  it  next  to  being  wealthy.  To  dine  well  without 
having  to  think  of  the  bill  is  the  life  of  the  gods. 

Although  Antiphanes  resembles  the  other  comedians  of  his 
time  in  his  philosophy  of  life,  and  advises  men,  being  mortal, 
to  limit  themselves  to  things  mortal ;  and  although  he  holds 
that  if  you  take  away  the  pleasures  from  life  there  is  nothing 
left  except  to  die,  still  this  is  outweighed  (at  any  rate  in  the 
fragments  we  possess)  by  his  moral  aphorisms ;  e.g.  base  gains 
bring  little  pleasure  and  much  pain  ;  the  consciousness  of  a  just 
life  is  the  best  of  pleasures ;  since  man  must  die,  it  is  folly  to 
die  for  nothing ;  adorn  not  your  body  with  bright  colours,  but 
your  heart  with  clean  works  ;  honourable  poverty  is  better  than 
base  wealth.  Antiphanes'  humour  peeps  out  in  the  fragment 
in  which  he  says  that  it  is  not  on  the  perjurer,  but  on  the  man 
who  trusts  him  that  divine  vengeance  descends.  He  was  a  man 
of  the  world,  as  is  shown  by  his  maxim  that  one  should  do  at 
Sparta  as  Sparta  does ;  and  he  anticipated  the  expression  that 
the  dead  are  not  dead  but  "gone  before."  Finally,  we  may 
notice  that  in  some  respects  Antiphanes  foreshadows  the  New 
Comedy,  and  thus  gives  additional  proof  that  the  Middle  Comedy 
was  but  a  transition  stage  ;  for  the  titles  of  some  of  his  comedies 
seem  to  show  that  their  plots  were  of  the  more  developed  kind 
which  were  characteristic  of  the  New  Comedy.  Such  are  the 
Marriage,  the  Twins,  the  Unfortunate  Lovers,  the  Heiress,  the 
Lost  Money,  &c.^ 

The  next  poet  of  the  Middle  Comedy  of  whom  we  posses« 

*Add,  amongst  others,  the' AvaaLfiibiuvoi,  which  was  performed  in  B.C.  356^ 
M«ording  to  the  Didascalia  preserved  to  us  in  a  stone  record.    C.  J.  O.  i.  354' 


THE  DRAMA  :    MIDDLE  COMEDY.  29 1 

any  considerable  fragments  is  Anaxandrides  ;  and  as  Aristotle 
several  times  quotes  him,  it  is  probable  that  he  was  a  comedian 
of  some  merit.  Anaxandrides,  too,  like  Alexis  and  Antiphanes, 
was  not  by  birth  an  Athenian.  He  seems  to  have  commenced 
his  career  as  a  comedian  about  B,c,  376,  and  to  have  continued 
until  about  B.C.  345  or  b.c.  340.  He  did  write  dithyrambs,  but 
was  best  known  as  a  comedian.  Of  his  thirty-six  comedies 
whose  titles  we  are  acquainted  with,  one-third  were  mythologica.. 
burlesques  ;  and  in  respect  of  his  subjects,  literature,  philosophy, 
hetaeras,  &c.,  he  seems  to  have  been  in  accord  with  the  other 
poets  of  the  Middle  Comedy,  Suidas  says  that  he  was  the  first 
comedian  to  introduce  love  plots,  but  the  author  of  the  Greek 
life  of  Aristophanes  says  that  it  was  Aristophanes  v/ho  first  in- 
troduced them  in  the  lost  play  Cocalus.  Although  in  Anax- 
andrides we  find  the  usual  attacks  on  marriage,  we  also  find 
him  opposed  to  divorce.  But  perhaps  the  two  most  remarkable 
fragments  are  that  in  which  he  declares  his  agnosticism,^  and 
that  in  which  he  insists  on  the  relativity  of  religions.  ^  Thus 
the  Egyptians  worship  cows,  the  Greeks  eat  them ;  the  former 
adore  dogs,  the  latter  thrash  them  ;  and  a  similar  variation  of 
the  religious  sentiment  is  to  be  observed  in  the  treatment  by  the 
two  peoples  of  cats. 

In  Eubulus  at  last  we  come  to  a  comedian  of  Athenian  birth. 
According  to  Suidas,  he  lived  about  B.C.  376,  but  his  life  must 
have  been  prolonged  for  some  time  later,  as  he  was  contem- 
porary with  Demosthenes  and  Hyperides.  "We  possess  frag- 
ments and  the  titles  of  about  fifty  comedies ;  and  from  these 
it  would  seem  that  Eubulus  particularly  afi"ected  mythological 
burlesque.  Allied  with  this  is  a  fondness  for  parodying  the  tra- 
gedians, particularly  Euripides,  and,  with  more  justice,  Diony- 
sius,  the  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  whose  tragedies  seem  to  have  been 
bad.  In  diction,  Eubulus,  from  his  fragments,  appears  to  have 
been  terse  and  elegant. 

Of  the  other  thirty  poets  of  the  Middle  Comedy  we  have  not 
space  to  speak  in  detail.  What  remains  of  Amphis  makes  us 
regret  the  loss  of  his  plays.  He  had  discovered  that  the  best 
solace  for  misfortune  is  work  ;  that  one  dislikes  the  scenes  of 
one's  misfortunes ;  that  solitude  is  golden  ;  that  silence  is  invalu- 
able, and  that  death  is  everlasting.  A  still  greater  loss  is  that 
of  the  plays  of  Timocles,  who  seems  to  have  possessed  an  excel- 

*  The  Canephoros  (F.  C.  M.  171):— 

&iravT€s  iafiiv  irpbs  to.  6ei'  d/SArcpw 

KoilK  ifffiiv  ov5(v. 

*  The  Poleis  (F.  C.  M.  181). 


292  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

lent  style,  considerable  power,  and  much  audacity.  Several 
of  his  fragments  contain  political  allusions,  and  in  them  he 
shows  that  he  belonged  to  the  Macedonian  party ;  Ict  in  the 
Delos,  where  he  alludes  to  the  Harpalus  affair,  he  not  only, 
in  accordance  with  the  general  suspicion  of  the  time,  accuses 
Demosthenes  of  having  been  bribed  by  Harpalus,  but  also 
makes  the  same  charge  against  Hyperides.  Elsewhere  also  he 
attacks  these,  the  most  prominent  orators  of  the  anti- Macedonian 
party.  We  also  have  an  interesting  fragment  of  nineteen  lines 
by  Timocles  expounding  the  theory  of  tragedy,  to  the  effect 
that  men  find  consolation  for  their  own  misfortunes  in  seeing 
represented  the  greater  misfortunes  which  the  heroes  of  tragedy 
bear.  Ephippus  gives  an  amusing  sketch  of  a  foppish  young 
follower  of  Plato,  about  to  make  a  speech,  and  posed  in  a 
beautiful  attitude,  with  one  foot  (toe  on  the  ground,  heel  in  the 
air)  crossing  the  other  ankle,  displaying  his  carefully  arranged 
straps  and  elegant  sandals,  mantle  aesthetically  draped,  and  him- 
self majestically  leaning  on  his  cane.  The  followers  of  Plato 
also  furnish  the  subject  of  a  long  fragment  by  Epicrates,  who 
represents  them  as  much  exercised  as  to  the  definition  of  colo- 
cynth,  whether  it  is  animal,  vegetable,  or  mineral ;  for,  says 
Epicrates,  they  spent  their  time  in  defining  things.  In  the  frag- 
ments of  Anaxilas  we  find  a  long  diatribe  against  another  class 
in  Athenian  society,  the  hetaerae;  it  is  illuminating  for  the 
social  sanction  of  the  time  to  notice  that  Anaxilas  does  not 
complain  that  hetserae  are  immoral,  but  that  they  are  expensive. 
Elsewhere  he  complains  that  some  people  are  as  suspicious  as 
snails,  who  carry  their  very  houses  about  with  them.  Dionysios 
in  a  long  fragment  gives  us  an  amusing  picture  of  a  cook,  who 
treats  his  art  with  the  respect  which  its  importance  in  the  time 
of  the  Middle  Comedy  entitled  it  to  ;  it  is  above  definition  ; 
any  man  may  roast  or  boil,  but  to  be  a  cook  is  another  thing. 
This  cook  seem-s  to  have  been  an  Aristotelian,  for  the  Stagirite 
about  this  time  was  drawing  exactly  the  same  distinction  ;  any 
man  may  do  a  just  act,  but  to  be  a  just  man  is  a  different  thing. 
Aristophon  draws  a  Parasite  in  a  way  which  reminds  us  of  the 
Parasite  of  Antiphanes ;  he  is  an  Argive  at  ejecting  drunken 
guests,  a  ram  at  breaking  open  doors,  and  he  is  so  regular  in 
appearing  at  dinner  that  he  has  earned  the  nickname  "  Soup."  ^ 
Axionicus  and  Diodorus  also  draw  the  character  of  the  Parasite, 
but  do  not  add  any  fresh  traits  to  the  character.     Theophilua 

*  Af  Tt»  iariq.,  ir&peifii  TrpcDroj,  Sxxt  ijSTj  TdXou 
.  .   .  i^w/ibi  KoXovfiau 


THE  drama:  middle  comedy.  293 

calls  music  a  great  treasure ;  ^  and  Mnesimachus  has  a  beautiful 
comparison  of  sleep  to  death,  for  which  there  is  no  English 
equivalent.2  The  other  poets  of  whose  plays  we  have  frag- 
ments and  titles  do  not  call  for  special  mention.  They  are : 
Araros  and  Nicostiatus,  sons  of  Aristophanes ;  Antidotus,  Cra- 
tinus  (the  younger),  JDromo,  Epigenes,  Eriphus,  Eubulides, 
Heniochus,  Heraclides,  Heraclitus,  Orphelio,  Philetoerus,  Phi- 
liscus,  Sophilus,  Sotades,  Timotheus,  and  Xenarchus. 

1  In  the  Citharmdus  (F.  C.  M.  628)  :— 

liiyai  dt]aavp6s  icrri  Kal  ^^^aios  fiovffuci^ 

•  Jnurt  (F.  C.  M.  579)  :- 

tvptt  rd  iwcph  rov  ffarirov  fivcriiptt^ 


part  M. 

HISTORY,  ORATORY,  AND  PHILOSOPHY* 


BOOK  I. 

HISTORY. 


CHAPTER  L 

THE  BEGINNINGS   OP  PROSE. 

Poetry  precedes  prose  composition  generally  in  the  history  of 
a  nation's  literature,  partly  because  poetry  can  be  more  easily 
composed  and  transmitted  without  the  aid  of  writing  than  can 
prose,  and  partly  because  the  charm  of  verse  or  rhythm  appeals 
more  powerfully  and  more  directly  than  that  of  prose.  Further, 
prose  requires  that  the  means  of  writing  should  be  developed  to 
a  certain  extent ;  and  in  the  case  of  the  Greeks,  we  must  add 
that  a  reading  public  only  came  into  existence  late  and  gradu- 
ally. The  Greek  lived  more  in  the  open  air  than  in  his  own 
house ;  transacted  business,  private  and  political,  orally  more 
than  by  means  of  writing ;  and,  by  the  constitution  of  the  society 
he  lived  in,  listened  to  rather  than  read  his  literature.  The 
Greek  aversion  to  the  solitary  and  unsociable  mode  of  acquir- 
ing information  by  reading  is  illustrated  in  the  Phoedrus  of 
Plato,!  where  Socrates  says  of  written  works :  "  You  would 
imagine  that  they  had  intelligence ;  but  if  you  want  to  know 
anything  and  put  a  question  to  one  of  them,  the  speaker  always 
gives  one  unvarying  answer.  And  when  they  have  been  once 
written  down,  they  are  tumbled  about  anywhere,  among  those 
who  do,  and  among  those  who  do  not  understand  them.  And 
they  have  no  reticences  or  proprieties  towards  different  classes 
of  persons ;  and,  if  they  are  unjustly  assailed  or  abused,  their 
parent  is  needed  to  protect  hie  offspring,  for  they  cannot  protect 
or  defend  themselves." 

This  passage  shows  that  people  did  read  books  in  Plato's  time ; 
but  in  the  sixth  century  B.C.,  when  prose  literature  begins  to 
make  its  appearance  for  the  first  time  in  Greece,  there  was  do 

^  875  (Jowett's  translation^ 


298  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

reading  public,  and  prose  authors  composed  their  works  rather 
to  be  delivered  as  lectures  than  to  be  circulated  as  books. 
"Writing  at  the  time  seems  to  have  been  developed  enough  to 
aid  composition,  but  not  enough  to  diffuse  literature.  As 
was  to  be  expected  in  a  new  art,  the  art  of  composing  prose 
was  one  which  only  gradually  attained  freedom  and  grace. 
Indeed,  the  very  idea  of  prose  literary  composition  was  one 
which  only  occurred  to  the  Greek  mind  when  poetry  had 
made  several  unsuccessful  attempts  to  narrate  history  and  ex- 
pound philosophy — two  functions  which  do  not  properly  belong 
to  poetry.  Laws  and  treaties  between  states  had,  doubtless, 
been  expressed  in  prose  and  inscribed  on  stone  or  metal  before 
the  sixth  century,  but  they  are  no  more  literature  than  are 
the  lists  of  Olympian  victors,  which  also  existed  probably 
before  the  sixth  century.  If,  then,  setting  aside  laws,  treaties, 
lists  of  officials,  &c.,  as  not  belonging  to  our  subject,  we  turn 
to  the  earliest  prose  literature  of  Greece,  we  find  that  history 
and  philosophy  are  the  two  subjects  which,  having  been  de- 
veloped in  poetry,  at  least  as  far  as  was  compatible  with  the 
laws  of  poetry,  were  the  first  to  burst  the  bonds  of  rhythm  and 
find  expression  in  prose. 

Prose,  like  other  forms  of  Greek  literature,  although  carried 
to  its  highest  pitch  in  the  mother-land,  originated  in  the  colo- 
nies ;  and  it  is  to  Miletus  especially  that  the  honour  of  invent- 
ing prose  belongs.  The  earliest  prose  writers,  Hecataeus,  Phere- 
cydes  the  historian,  Dionysius,  Anaximander,  and  Anaximenes, 
were  either  born  in  Miletus,  or,  like  Bion,  Deiochus,  and 
Charon,  in  colonies  founded  by  Miletus.  Pherecydes  of  Syros, 
who  disputes  with  Cadmus  of  Miletus  the  honour  of  being  the 
first  Greek  prose  writer,  did  not  indeed  belong  to  Miletus,  but 
to  the  colonies.  The  very  existence  of  Cadmus  has,  however, 
been  disputed.  According  to  the  ordinary  account,  he  lived 
about  B.C.  550  and  wrote  an  account  of  the  Foundation  or 
Colonisation  of  JSIiletus,  which,  according  to  Suidas,  consisted 
of  four  books.  It  seems,  however,  extremely  improbable  that 
the  works  which  in  the  time  of  Augustus  went  under  the 
name  of  Cadmus  were  genuine  ;  and  although  there  may  have 
been  a  writer  named  Cadmus  who  lived  in  the  middle  of  the 
sixth  century  b.c,,  it  must  be  said  that  he  is  not  even  men- 
tioned by  any  classical  writer,  or,  indeed,  by  any  author  before 
Strabo.  The  existence,  on  the  other  hand,  of  a  genuine  work 
by  Pherecydes  of  Syros  On  Nature  seems  to  be  generally 
accepted ;  but  the  evidence  as  to  his  date  is  conflicting,  and 
it  is  only  conje^turally  that  he  is  placed  in  the  middle  of  the 


I 


history:  the  beginnings  of  prose.  299 

Bixlh  century  B.C.,  though  the  conjecture  is  confirmed  by  both 
the  language  and  the  style  of  the  few  fragments  which  have 
come  down  to  us.  The  language  is  Old  Ionic,  and  the  style  has 
the  "jerkiness"  and  abruptness  characteristic  of  the  earliest 
attempts  to  write  prose.  It  is  in  favour  of  the  antiquity  of 
Pherecydes  and  the  genuineness  of  the  fragments  that  he  is 
mentioned  by  Aristotle.^  From  Pherecydes  of  Syros  who  wrote 
a  poem  On  Nature  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  Pherecydes  of 
Leros,  who  lived  about  the  time  of  the  Persian  wars,  and  wrote 
on  the  Antiquities  of  Attica  in  ten  books,  beginning  with  the 
beginning  of  the  world  and  coming  down  to  the  Ionic  coloni- 
sation of  Asia  Minor.  With  regard  to  Bion  of  Proconnesus, 
another  early  prose  writer,  who  wrote  on  the  early  history  of 
Ionia,  it  is  uncertain  at  what  period  he  lived.  He  is  said  to 
have  been  contemporary  with  Pherecydes,  but  with  which 
Pherecydes  is  doubtful,  Acusilaus  of  Argos  is  said  to  have 
lived  shortly  after  Cadmus ;  but,  like  Cadmus,  his  existence 
lacks  the  satisfactory  support  of  a  mention  in  classical  writers, 
and  we  cannot,  therefore,  feel  any  great  confidence  in  what  is 
told  us  about  him.  He  is  said  to  have  composed  a  genealogical 
work,  which  began  with  Chaos  and  came  down  to  the  Trojan 
■war,  and  which  resembled  in  everything  but  metre  the  genea- 
logical poems  of  the  Hesiodic  school.  Even  in  the  time  of 
Hadrian  this  work  existed,  but,  as  in  the  case  of  the  works  of 
Cadmus,  it  seems  more  probable  that  we  have  to  do  with  a 
forgery  than  with  a  genuine  work.  The  very  nature  of  the 
work  is  inconsistent  with  the  idea  involved  in  the  term  "  logo- 
grapher,"  which  is  applied  to  the  early  prose  writers  who  paved 
the  way  for  history,  when  it  at  length  appeared  in  the  work  of 
Herodotus.  By  the  name  "  logographer "  is  meant  a  person 
■who  collects  and  commits  to  writing  facts,  in  contradistinction 
to  one  who  collects  myths  ;  whereas,  if  the  work  which  went  in 
Hadrian's  time  under  the  name  of  Acusilaus  were  genuine, 
Acusilaus  would  merely  have  paraphrased  in  prose  the  myths  of 
Hesiod.  Before  proceeding  to  those  logographers  of  whom  we 
know  something,  we  will  briefly  mention  those  of  whom  we 
know  little  but  their  names.  Deiochus  of  Proconnesus  is  said 
to  have  written  an  account  of  the  city  of  Cyzicus.  Hippys  of 
Rhegium  lived  in  the  time  of  the  Persian  wars,  and  wrote  an 
account  of  Argos.  Eugeon  of  Sam  s,  Eudemus  of  Paros  (or 
Naxos),  Democles,  Melesagoras,  Xenoraedes  of  Chios,  and 
Damastes,  are  little  more  than  names  to  us. 

The  most  distinguished  of  the  logographers  was  Hecataeiis  of 
^  Metaphyt.  If.  H.  1092B  9. 


300  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Miletus,  a  man  who  figures  in  the  history  of  his  country  as  well 
as  in  the  history  of  literature,  and  for  whom  we  conceive  a  dis« 
tinct  admiration.  The  date  of  his  birth  and  death  there  is 
nothing  to  fix,  hut  the  time  at  which  he  flourished  fortunately 
admits  of  no  doubt.  Herodotus  not  only  frequently  refers  to 
him  and  quotes  from  him,  but  gives  us  valuable  information 
about  his  life.  In  the  time  of  the  Ionic  revolt,  Hecatseus  was 
a  man  of  position,  influence,  and  character.  He  was  among  the 
leading  men  whom  Aristagoras  consulted  when  about  to  insti- 
gate Ionia  to  revolt,  and  he  showed  his  insight  and  his  compre- 
hension of  the  enormous  power  of  the  Persian  empire  by  endea- 
vouring to  dissuade  his  countrymen  from  attempting  to  match 
themselves  against  their  powerful  masters.  This  was  from  no 
sympathy  with  the  Persians,  from  no  want  of  patriotisni  or  of 
love  of  freedom,  on  the  part  of  Hecatseus,  but  because  he,  with 
a  cool  head  and  with  the  knowledge  he  had  acquired  of  the 
resources  of  the  Persian  empire,  foresaw  the  hopelessness  of 
the  struggle.  The  revolt  once  decided  on,  Hecatseus  showed 
the  same  cool  perception  of  the  advantages  possessed  by  the 
lonians,  and  advised  them,  if  they  undertook  the  struggle,  to 
employ  every  means  to  bring  it  to  a  successful  issue.  The  trea- 
sures of  the  great  Apollo  temples  at  Branchidse  would  fall  into 
the  hands  of  the  Persians  if  left  alone,  and  he  therefore  advised 
the  lonians  to  employ  these  temple  treasures  for  the  purposes 
of  the  revolt  rather  than  leave  them  to  be  used  by  the  enemy. 
This  advice,  however,  shared  the  same  fate  as  his  previous  pro- 
posal. A  third  time  Hecatseus  showed  his  practical  wisdom, 
and  a  third  time  his  advice  was  rejected,  when,  just  before  the 
battle  of  Lade,  he  proposed  that  the  inhabitants  of  Miletus 
should  leave  their  city,  withdraw  to  the  island  of  Leros,  and 
there,  awaiting  the  issue  of  events,  watch  for  a  favourable  mo- 
ment for  establishing  themselves  firmly  once  more  in  Miletus. 

Hecata^us  was  a  man  of  good  birth ;  he  traced  his  descent  to 
a  god,  and  must  have  been  possessed  of  some  wealth  to  make 
the  extensive  travels,  the  fruits  of  which  he  embodied  in  his 
Description  of  the  World.  This  work  consisted  apparently  of 
two  parts,  one  describing  Europe,  the  other  Asia — the  latter  in- 
cluding Egypt  and  Libya.  There  are  several  points  of  interest 
in  connection  with  this  work.  In  the  first  place,  we  find  that 
in  it  geography  is  hardly  yet  distinguished  from  history.  The 
plan  of  the  work  is  indeed  topographical,  but  the  descrijition  of 
the  places  mentioned  in  it  included  a  history  of  the  places  as 
well  In  the  next  place,  it  has  been  maintained,  both  in  ancient 
and  in  recent  times,  that  Herodotus  not  only  quotes  fionx  thia 


history:  the  beginnings  of  prose.  301 

work  with  acknowledgment,  bi;t  has  also  "  stolen "  passages 
from  his  predecessor's  Description  of  the  World,  and  tried  to 
pass  them  off  as  his  own.  Of  this  point,  as  far  as  it  affects 
the  chaiacter  of  Herodotus,  we  shall  have  to  speak  subsequently. 
In  this  place  we  have  to  consider  the  question  only  so  far  as  it 
may  throw  light  on  the  authenticity  of  the  works  ascribed  to 
Hecataeus. 

"Whether  Hecataeus  gave  names  to  the  two  parts  of  his  work, 
or  even  gave  a  title  to  the  whole  work,  may,  perhaps,  he 
doubted.^  It  may,  however,  be  regarded  as  a  certain  inference 
from  the  quotations  in  Herodotus  that  he  did  write  a  descrip- 
tion of  places  in  Europe  and  Asia.  In  Alexandrine  times  and 
later,  there  was  in  circulation  a  Description  of  the  World  pro- 
fessing to  be  by  Hecataeus,  and  divided  into  two  parts — a 
Description  of  Europe  and  a  Description  of  Asia.  But  Eratos- 
thenes (born  B.C.  276)  seems  to  have  had  great  doubt  whethei 
the  latter  part  was  genuine.  Instances  of  literary  forgery  we 
have  already  seen,  in  all  probability,  in  the  works  which  passed 
under  the  names  of  Cadmus  and  Acusilaus ;  and  it  seems  pro- 
bable that  here  too  we  have  the  work  of  a  forger,  who,  knowing 
that  Hecataeus  had  written  a  description  of  Asia  which  had 
perished,  proceeded  to  reconstruct  the  work,  and  in  doing  so 
borrowed  many  passages,  almost  verbatim,  from  Herodotus'  de- 
scription of  Egypt.2  Then,  in  later  times,  there  arose  among 
■uncritical  and  not  impartial  men  the  belief  that,  since  Herodotus 
was  later  in  date  than  Hecataeus,  these  passages  must  have  been 
stolen  by  the  later  from  the  earlier  writer.  Whether  the  De- 
scription  of  Europe,  the  first  part  of  the  work,  was  accepted  fta 
genuine  by  the  critics  of  Alexandria,  we  do  not  know.  We 
have  no  expression  of  their  opinion  for  or  against  it.  But  the 
spuriousness  of  the  one  part  throws  suspicion  on  the  other. 
Finally,  a  work  entitled  the  Genealogies,  which  was  in  circu- 
lation until  late  times,  was  ascribed  to  Hecataeus.  But  the 
mythical  character  of  the  work  is  not  much  in  accord  with 
what  little  we  know  of  Hecataeus'  writings ;  and  frequently,  as 

1  Herodotus  does  not  quote  the  work  by  name.  He  says,  eg.  ri.  137, 
Ejcaraios  (j^  0  ^'B.yriadvSpov  l<prj<Te  iv  Totai  \6yoiai.  k.t.\. 

^  If  this  be  the  case,  then  the  qualities  usually  ascribed  to  the  style  and 
language  of  Hecataeus  on  the  authority  of  Hermogenes — that  it  was  purer 
Ionic  than  Herodotus,  sweet,  but  less  sweet  than  Herodotus — can  no  longer 
be  predicated  of  it  ;  for  Hermogenes  was  speaking  with  reference  to  the  for* 
gery,  as  is  shown  by  the  words  with  which  he  begins  his  criticism,  De  Geti. 
Dicendi,  ii.  12,  'EKoratos  5^  6  MtX^atof,  Trap'  ov  d'o  /idXiCTa  w<pe\T]Tai.  i 
'S.o65oro5,  although  the  debt  of  Herodotus  is  by  some  taken  to  mean  indebted* 
ness  in  style,  not  m  matter. 


302  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Herodotus  refers  to  him,  he  never  cites  him  in  such  a  way  as  to 
countenance  the  belief  that  he  wrote  more  than  one  work. 

Contemporary  with  Hecataeus  seems  to  have  been  Dionysius 
of  Miletus,  who  wrote  probably  a  Persian  History,  and  Charon 
of  Lampsacus,  who  seems  to  have  been  nothing  more  than  an 
annalist.  A  man  of  far  different  powers  was  Hellanicus  of 
Mitylene,  who  wrote  numerous  prose  works  of  various  kinds. 
His  date  cannot  be  fixed  precisely,  but  he  was  a  contemporary 
of  Herodotus,  and  lived  long  enough  to  bring  his  History  of 
Attica  down  to  the  beginning  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  as  we 
learn  from  Thucydides  (i.  97).  His  works  may  be  divided  into 
three  classes — genealogical,  topographical,  and  chronologicaL 
The  genealogical  works  included  the  Deucalioneia,  which,  fol- 
lowing the  Thessalian  myth,  began  with  Deucalion  after  the 
flood,  and  probably  dealt  with  Thessalian  traditions ;  and  the 
Troica,  which  not  only  related  many  new  facts  about  the  Trojan 
war,  but  followed  the  history  of  the  Trojan  colonies  founded 
after  the  fall  of  Troy.  The  topographical  works  included  much 
history,  as  well  as  the  description  of  places ;  for  instance,  the 
Atthis,  or  History  of  Attica,  included  a  sketch  of  Attic  history 
from  the  time  of  Cecrops  to  the  beginning  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war.  The  Persica  comprised  a  history  not  only  of  the  Persians, 
but  also  of  the  Medes  and  Assyrians  from  the  time  of  Ninus  to 
the  time  of  Hellanicus.  The  uEolica  or  Lesbica  also  probably 
included  the  history  as  well  as  a  description  of  Lesbos.  The 
chronological  works  or  annals,  the  Priestesses  of  theArgive  Hera 
and  the  Carneonicoe,  were  based  on  official  lists,  in  the  one  case 
of  the  priestesses,  in  the  other  of  the  winners  at  the  Carnean 
games ;  but  they  were  something  more  than  bare  lists.  It  is 
probable  that  even  the  official  lists  comprised  something  more 
than  mere  names,  and  that  important  events  were  also  briefly 
noted  down.  Hellanicus,  again,  may  have  collected  together 
and  synchronised  information  drawn  from  various  data;  for 
there  was  at  this  time  no  mode  of  reckoning  the  years  common 
to  all  the  Greeks. 

Finally,  among  the  logographers  earlier  than  or  contemporary 
with  Herodotus,  we  must  mention  Xanthus  of  Lydia,  who  com- 
posed an  account  of  his  native  country.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
he  wrote  before  Herodotus  or  not.  Ephorus,  a  later  historian, 
however,  affirms  that  the  work  of  Herodotus  was  indebted  to 
Xanthus,  and  the  authority  for  making  Xanthus  later  than 
Herodotus  is  not  strong  enough  to  outweigh  the  evidence  of 
Ephorus.  Before  leaving  the  logographers,  we  may  say,  on  the 
authority  of  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  which  is  confirmed  by 


mSTORY:    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  PROSE.  303 

the  fragments  that  we  possess  and  by  knowledge  derived  from 
other  sources,  that  the  logographers  bore  a  close  likeness  to  each 
other  both  in  their  methods  and  in  their  style.  Their  object 
was  to  give  publicity  to  traditions  which  had  only  an  oral  cur- 
rency, and  to  the  events  of  the  past  recorded  in  the  lists  and 
other  documents  preserved  in  temples  or  other  public  places. 
In  the  arrangement  of  the  material  which  they  collected  they 
showed  no  skill.  They  simply  heaped  together  all  the  informa- 
tion they  could  get,  and  classed  it  solely  by  the  nation  or  town 
to  which  it  related.  As  poetry  is  fitted  for  works  of  the  ima- 
gination, so  is  prose  for  precision  ;  and  although  the  logogra- 
phers had  little  or  no  notion  of  historical  criticism,  their  inten- 
tion was  to  collect  facts,  as  their  name  imphes,  not  myths. 
Finally,  as  regards  their  style,  it  was  clear,  simple,  correct, 
brief,  and  free  from  rhetorical  decoration.  The  earliest  of  them 
evidently  find  prose  a  difficult  instrument  to  handle.  They 
eject  short  sentences  with  a  sharp  effort.  The  movement  of 
their  writing  is  jerky.  Their  vocabulary  and  metaphors  are 
those  of  poetry  rather  than  of  prose ;  and  periods  which  even  in 
Homer  have  attained  a  certain  development  and  complexity  are 
unknown  in  the  earliest  prose. 

Contemporary  with,  but  junior  to,  Herodotus  was  the  celebrated 
physician  Hippocrates.  He  was  born  between  B.C.  470  and  B.C. 
460  in  the  island  of  Cos,  and  belonged  to  the  family  of  the 
Asclepiadae,  who  traced  their  origin  to  the  fabulous  .^sculapius. 
In  his  youth  he  became  familiar  with  the  theory  and  prac- 
tice of  medicine  by  his  connection  with  the  Asclepion  of  Cos, 
and  he  was  specially  instructed  by  Herodicus,  who  first  intro- 
duced the  use  of  gymnastics  as  a  part  of  medicine.  He  then 
made  extensive  travels,  as  may  be  inferred  from  his  works.  In 
what  order  he  visited  the  places  which  he  mentions,  we  cannot 
say  ;  but  he  seems  to  have  been  acquainted  with  Delos,  Thasos, 
Alodera,  and  other  places  in  Thrace  and  Thessaly.  In  Athens 
he  must  have  spent  much  time,  and  although  there  is  no  satis- 
factory evidence  for  the  story  that  he  rendered  important  services 
during  the  great  plague  which  broke  out  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Piloponnesian  war,  there  isnothing  intrinsically  improbable  in  the 
story.  Macedonia  it  seems  probable  he  visited,  for  he  describes 
Pella  and  Acanthus ;  and  we  know  that  his  son  became  court- 
physician  to  Archelaus,  king  of  Macedonia.  It  is  also  said  that 
he  declined  an  invitation  to  attend  the  king  of  Persia.  Neither 
has  this  story  any  improbability  in  itself,  for  before  the  time  ot 
Hippocrates  a  Greek  physician,  Democedes,  had  been  attached 
to  the  Persian  court,  and  in  Hippocrates'  own  time  his  relation 


304  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Ctesias  was  tlie  Persian  court-physician.  But  there  is  no  good 
evidence  for  the  story.  Hippocrates  died  at  Larissa  some  time 
between  B.C.  380  and  B.C.  360,  at  an  advanced  age. 

The  works  of  Hippocrates  are  the  earliest  treatises  on  aedi- 
cine  known  to  us  in  Greek,  hut  they  are  in  themselves  proof 
that  the  art  must  have  been  cultivated  in  Greece  long  before 
his  time.  Considerable  as  the  genius  of  "  the  great  Hippo- 
crates "  undoubtedly  is,  and  vast  as  was  his  own  observation, 
he  was  to  some  extent  indebted  to  his  predecessors.  But  the 
amount  and  nature  of  the  debt  are  hard  to  determine.  The 
Asclepia,  or  temples  of  ^Esculapius,  which  were  established  in 
various  parts  of  Greece,  corresponded  in  many  respects  to  the 
hospitals  of  the  present  day.  Patients  went  there  to  be  treated, 
and  there  physicians  acquired  practical  knowledge  and  skill 
In  many  points  the  treatment  usual  in  the  Asclepia  was  fai 
from  scientific,  but  the  facts  that  they  were  usually  situated 
near  thermal  springs,  that  attention  was  paid  to  diet,  that  the 
imagination  of  the  patient  was  worked  upon,  help  us  to  under- 
stand the  character  of  the  treatment  pursued.  On  the  other 
hand,  though  the  art  was  cultivated,  the  science  was  not  ne- 
glected. The  physicians  carefully  noted  down  the  symptoms 
presented  by  the  patient  when  first  brought,  and  then  with 
equal  care  noted  the  course  of  the  disease  and  the  results  con- 
sequent upon  the  exhibition  of  various  kinds  of  medicine. 

Hippocrates  shows  his  greatness  in  the  way  in  which  he 
rejects  what  was  unsound  in  the  medical  methods  of  his  day, 
and  carries  forward  all  that  was  scientific.  Viewing  him,  there- 
fore, in  connection  with  the  medicine  of  his  time,  we  have  to 
notice  first  his  break  with  it,  next  his  connection  with  it. 
With  all  quackery,  with  "  amulets  and  complicated  machines 
to  impose  on  the  credulity  of  the  ignorant  multitude,"  ^  he 
broke  once  and  for  all.  At  the  same  time,  his  early  practice 
in  the  hospital  of  Cos  saved  him  from  indulging  in  the  useless 
speculations  and  quasi-philosophical  theories  of  medicine,  which 
were  popular  among  the  intellectual  men  of  the  day,  and  must 
have  been  particularly  seductive  to  a  man  of  the  mental  power 
of  Hippocrates.  While  he  thus  broke  with  the  errors  of  the 
multitude  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  cultivated  on  the  other, 
Hippocrates  adhered  to  and  developed  the  scientific  tendencies 
present  in  Greek  medicines.  As  we  have  said,  the  course  of 
diseases  was  «^udied  carefully  in  the  Asclepia  of  Greece  ;  this 
implies  patient  observation,  and  results  in  considerable  skill  ia 
prognosis.  Now,  it  is  in  prognosis  that  Hippocrates  excels, 
^  The  Oenuine  Works  of  Hippocrates,  L  18. 


HISTORY  :    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  PEOSE.  305 

while  throughout  his  works  the  basis  of  all  his  investigationa 
and  conclusions  is  observation  and  experience.  His  theory  of 
symptoms  has  been  the  marvel  and  the  model  of  all  succeeding 
generations  of  physicians ;  while  his  conspectus  of  the  remotei 
causes  of  disease,  e.g.  atmosphere,  seasons  of  the  year,  local 
conditions,  &c.,  is  a  remarkable  example  of  insight  and  accu- 
rate observation.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  in  Greece  specu- 
lation reigned  to  the  exclusion  of  observation  ;  but  the  works 
of  Hippocrates  are  an  everlasting  proof  to  the  contrary.  Expe- 
riment, with  all  that  it  may  be  made  to  reveal,  was  unknown 
to  the  Greeks ;  nor  had  they  the  accumulated  observations  of 
thousands  of  years,  which  modern  men  of  science  possess,  to 
■work  upon ;  but  they  were  not  lacking  in  the  power  of  obser- 
vation. The  boldness  and  success  of  Hippocrates  in  surgical 
operations  shows  how  fully  he  availed  himself  of  the  oppor- 
tunities of  observation  afforded  him  by  the  frequent  accidents 
in  the  national  games  of  Greece  ;  though  in  anatomy  and  gen- 
eral pathology  he  is  now,  of  course,  obsolete.  But,  much  as 
Hippocrates  trusts  to  experience,  he  is  no  mere  empiric.  He 
employed  reason  on  the  results  of  observation,  and  the  first 
of  his  Aphorisms  is  justly  famous.  It  runs,  "  Life  is  short 
and  the  Art  long  ;  the  occasion  fleeting,  experience  fallacious, 
and  judgment  difficult."  ^ 

The  dialect  in  which  Hippocrates  wrote  is  Ionic.  Prose  had 
not  yet  been  adopted  by  the  Athenians  as  their  own ;  but  the 
Ionic  of  Hippocrates  differs  somewhat  from  that  of  Herodotus  in 
the  greater  number  of  Atticisms  which  it  includes.  In  style  Hip- 
pocrates is  compared  by  Dionysius  to  Thucydides ;  and  in  his 
desire  to  crowd  as  much  thought  into  one  sentence  as  possible,  he 
is  apt  to  become  obscure.  But  his  brevity  is  the  terseness  of  a 
vigorous  thinker,  not  the  inadequacy  resulting  from  poverty  of 
ideas.  The  number  of  works  which  have  come  to  be  ascribed 
to  him  is  great.  The  Prognostics,  First  and  Third  Epidemics, 
On  Regimen  in  Acute  Diseases,  On  Airs,  Waters,  and  Places, 
On  Wounds  of  the  Head,  and  the  A2}horisms  are  universally 
regarded  as  by  Hippocrates.  To  give  merely  a  list  of  the 
other  treatises,  of  which  some  in  all  probability  are  by  Hippo- 
crates, would  take  more  space  than  can  be  here  afforded. 

A  commentary  on  the  works  of  Hippocrates  was  written  by  a 
celebrated  physician,  Herophilus  of  Chalcedon  in  Bithynia,  who 
flourished  about  B.C.  300.  This,  however,  has  perished  along 
^ith  the  other  works  of  Herophilus. 

1  Hippocrates,  ii.  697. 


30C  msrroRY  of  greek  literaturk. 

CHAPTER  II. 

HERODOTUS. 

Halioarnassus,  the  birthplace  of  Herodotus,  was  situated  on  th« 
south-west  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  and  was  originally  occupied  by 
Carians.  Dorian  emigrants  from  Troezene  ^  then  settled  there, 
and  for  some  time  the  place  belonged  to  a  confederation  con- 
sisting of  six  Dorian  cities,  but  eventually  was  excluded  or 
withdrew  from  the  alliance. ^  Like  the  other  Greek  colonies 
on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  Halicarnassus  became  subject  first 
to  the  Lydian  power,^  and  then,  when  Cyrus  conquered  the 
Lydian  kingdom,  to  the  Persian  empire.*  In  pursuance  of  the 
policy  which  they  employed  elsewhere,  the  Persians  did  not 
directly  govern  Halicarnassus,  but  established  or  confirmed  the 
rule  of  a  native  Tyrant,  who  was  a  vassal  of  the  great  king, 
and  was  responsible  for  the  payment  to  the  local  satrap  of  a 
fixed  tribute,  and  for  raising  troops  when  required.  During  the 
boyhood  of  Herodotus,  Halicarnassus  was  ruled  by  a  queen, 
Artemisia,  who  took,  as  Herodotus  tells  us^  with  evident  pride, 
high  position  for  her  courage  and  sagacity  in  the  counsels  and 
esteem  of  Xerxes  during  the  second  Persian  invasion. 

The  best  evidence  that  we  have  of  the  date  of  Herodotus  is 
afforded  by  the  historian  himself  when  he  tells  us  ^  that  he  had 
a  conversation  with  Thersander  of  Orchomenus,  who  had  been 
present  at  a  banquet  given  by  Mardonius  during  the  second 
Persian  war,  and  to  whom  on  that  occasion  a  Persian  had  con- 
fided his  presentiment — destined  to  be  fulfilled — that  shortly 
the  Persian  host  would  be  destroyed,  and  but  few  would  survive. 
This  is  good  though  indefinite  evidence.  It  shows  that  Hero- 
dotus was  not  old  enough  to  tell  the  tale  of  the  Persian  wars 
from  his  own  experience,  but  yet  was  old  enough  to  meet  people 
who  had  taken  part  in  them.  Thus,  although  we  cannot  regard 
Pamphila's  "  statement,  which  would  make  Herodotus  to  have 
been  born  b.c.  484,  as  anything  more  than  a  conjecture,  we  may 
take  it  as  approximately  correct,  for  the  supposition  that  he  waa 
born  some  time  between  the  first  and  the  second  Persian  wars 
(i.e.  between  B.C.  490  and  480)  accords  with  tradition,  and  with 
what  little  we  know  of  his  life. 

^  Eerodotvs,  vii.  99.  2  {_  j^  8  i_  28.  *  i.  174. 

•  vii.  99.  6  ix.  16. 

'  Pamphila  was  an  authoress  of  the  time  of  Nero.     The  puiAge  in  questioa 
It  preserved  in  Aulus  Gellius,  N.  A.  xv.  23, 


history:    HERODOTUS.  30/ 

According  to  Suidas,^  Herodotus  "belonged  to  a  good  Halicar- 
nassian  family.  His  most  distinguished  relative  was  Panyasis, 
a  literary  man,  who  must  be  supposed  tc  have  exercised  some 
influence  on  his  literary  and  mental  development.  Herodotus 
was  doubtless  by  nature  inclined  to  put  much  belief  in  omens, 
portents,  and  prodigies  of  all  kinds  ;  and  an  acquaintance  with 
the  epic  poets  was  part  of  the  education  of  his  time  ;  but  it 
could  not  have  been  wholly  without  effect  upon  Herodotus  that 
Panyasis  applied  the  method  of  observation  to  portents,  &c., 
and  obtained  some  distinction  as  an  epic  writer.  "We  know, 
further,  that  Panyasis  wrote  a  poem  on  the  adventures  of  Hera- 
cles, a  Heracleiad  ;  and  Herodotus  himself  took  so  much  interest 
in  the  myths  connected  with  Heracles,  that  he  voyaged  to  Tyre 
solely  in  order  to  investigate  one  of  them.  Finally,  we  find 
that  Herodotus'  taste  for  the  antiquities  of  history,  and  probably 
to  some  extent  his  knowledge  of  the  subject,  were  forestalled  in 
a  work  by  Panyasis  on  the  colonisation  of  Ionia. 

Of  the  life  of  Herodotus,  all  that  we  know  practically  is,  that 
he  undertook  extensive  travels  over  all  the  world  then  known. 
The  result  of  these  travels  was  the  History  of  Herodotus  which 
we  now  possess,  divided  by  the  grammarians  of  Alexandria  into 
nine  books,  named  after  the  nine  Muses.  "Whether  Herodotus 
from  the  beginning  of  his  explorations  entertained  the  design  of 
writing  the  history  of  the  long  struggle  between  the  Greeks  and 
the  barbarians  which  resulted  in  the  Persian  wars,  there  is  no 
direct  evidence  to  show.  There  is,  however,  nothing  impro- 
bable in  making  the  assumption,  and  the  whole  tone  of  the 
work  is  much  more  in  harmony  with  the  feelings  which  ani- 
mated Hellas  in  the  time  of  Herodotus'  youth,  than  with  those 
which  were  rife  when,  in  his  declining  years,  he  was  reducing 
to  form  at  Thurii  the  materials  which  he  had  laboriously  col- 
lected. The  history  of  Herodotus  is  throughout  national.  It 
is  the  story,  not  of  the  struggle  and  success  of  some  one  Greek 
state,  but  of  all  the  Hellenes  against  the  barbarians;  and  this 
sentiment  belongs  to  the  time  of  the  Persian  wars  and  the 
time  which  immediately  succeeded  them — the  period  of  Hero- 
dotus' youth — rather  than  to  the  time  when  tlie  feeling  of 
national  unity  had  yielded  before  the  divisions  produced  by  the 
great  struggle  between  Athens  and  Sparta  in  the  Peloponnesian 

1  SuilM,  whose  date  is  unknown,  but  is  generally  put  down  about  A.  D. 
looo,  composed  a  lexicon  in  which  he  draws  on  a  variety  of  older  works  of 
scholiasts,  grammarians,  lexicographers.  He  was  an  uncritical  writer,  and 
it  is  hard  to  distinguish  the  good  from  the  bad  in  him,  inasmuch  as  bis 
sources  sometimes  are,  and  sometimes  are  not,  trustworthy. 


308  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

war.  Further,  the  defeat  of  the  barbarians  is  treatcid  of  bt 
HerodDtus  as  an  historical  verification  of  the  religious  theory 
that  no  mortal  power  can  become  exceeding  great  without  incur- 
ring the  disfavour  of  the  gods,  and  eventually  meeting  destruc- 
tion from  them.  This  sentiment,  again,  is  one  which  was 
much  more  dominant  in  the  early  than  the  late  years  of  Hero- 
dotus, and  was  likely  to  influence  his  conception  of  his  History 
from  the  time  when  he  first  thought  of  writing  it,  and  not  to 
have  grown  up  during  the  writing  of  it.  Finally,  the  history 
of  his  own  native  place,  which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  went 
through  every  phase  of  the  national  conflict  with  the  barbarian, 
was  the  thread  round  which  all  his  later  knowledge  crystallised, 
and  naturally  determined  the  way  in  which  he  would  regard 
the  Persian  wars,  i.e.  as  the  result  of  a  long  series  of  collisions 
between  the  Greek  and  the  barbarian  worlds.  In  other  words, 
the  view  which  Herodotus  takes  is  that  of  the  Greeks  who 
lived  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  ^gaean.  This  view  he  learned 
in  his  youth  before  he  left  Halicarnassus,  not  when  he  settled 
in  Thurii ;  and  it  was  this  view  which  determined  the  informa- 
tion he  would  collect,  not  the  information  which  he  collected 
that  determined  his  point  of  view. 

Herodotus  begins  his  History  by  declaring  that  his  purpose  is 
to  tell  the  causes  of  the  wars  between  the  Greeks  and  the  bar- 
barians. The  wrongs  and  reprisals  on  both  sides,  which  belong 
to  the  domain  of  myth,  he  sets  aside  without  giving  an  opinion 
on  them  ;  he  prefers  to  begin  with  what  he  knows,  and  the  first 
thing  he  can  vouch  for  is,  that  Croesus,  the  king  of  Lydia, 
attacked  and  subjugated  the  Greek  cities  on  the  coast  of  Asia 
Minor.  This  leads  him  to  give  a  history  of  the  Lydian  kings — 
including  the  wonderful  story  of  Gyges  and  his  magical  ring, 
and  the  famous  interview  of  Solon  with  Croesus — and  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  country  of  Lydia  and  its  most  noteworthy  sights. 
The  wrong  Croesus  did  to  the  Asiatic  Greeks  and  the  excessive 
wealth  which  he  acquired  brought  down  on  him  the  wrath  of 
Heaven,  and  he  was  overthrown  by  the  Persian  Cyrus.  Then 
fallows  an  account  of  the  Medes  and  their  history  to  the  time 
of  Astyages,  of  the  birth  and  exposure  of  his  grandson  Cyrus, 
and  of  tlie  way  in  which  Cyrus  at  the  head  of  the  Persians 
overthrew  the  Median  kingdom.  "We  are  thus  brought  into  the 
domain  of  Persian  history,  and  the  growth  of  the  Persian  king- 
dom until  it  collided  with  Greece  is  the  main  subject  of  the 
first  s'x  books  of  Herodotus.  He  describes  the  customs  of  tho 
Persians,  their  conquest  under  Cyrus  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  of 
Babylon,  and  of  the  Massaget;© — in  each  case  giving  a  desarip* 


HISTORY:    HERODOTUS.  3O9 

tion  of  the  country  and  an  account  of  the  history  of  the  con 
quered  people.  Cyrus  was  succeeded  by  Cambyses,  who  under- 
took the  invasion  of  Egypt,  and  this  gives  Herodotus  an 
opportunity  for  introducing  his  wonderful  description  of  the 
land  of  Egypt,  of  the  strange  customs  of  its  peoples,  of  its 
marvellous  history  and  its  astounding  monuments.  This  fills 
the  whole  of  the  Second  book,  which  is  to  us,  as  it  was  to  the 
Greeks,  the  most  enthralling  of  all  the  nine  books. 

In  the  Third  book,  he  returns  to  the  invasion  of  Egypt  and 
its  conquest  by  Cambyses.  The  death  of  Cambyses  was  followed 
by  the  appearance  of  a  pretender  to  the  throne,  the  pseudo- 
Smerdis.  Herodotus  relates  his  dethronement  and  the  trick  by 
which  Darius  contrived  to  obtain  the  crown  for  himself.  At  this 
point  Herodotus  introduces  the  history  of  the  celebrated  tyrant 
of  Samos,  Polycrates  ;  the  tale  of  his  unsuccessful  attempt  to 
avert  the  Nemesis  of  the  gods  which  his  over-great  prosperity  was 
doomed  to  bring  upon  his  head,  and  his  fall.  Darius  organised 
the  government  of  the  now  vast  kingdom  of  Persia  with  a  broad 
statesmanship  and  minute  attention  to  detail  which  stamp  him 
as  the  greatest  of  the  Persian  monarchs  ;  and  the  revie"^  of  the 
Persian  kingdom  and  its  resources  thus  introduced  serves  to 
impress  the  reader  with  the  magnitude  of  the  danger  threaten- 
ing Greece,  and  to  heighten  the  interest  of  Herodotus'  tale. 

The  Fourth  book  is  occupied  by  Darius'  attempt  against  the 
Scyths,  which  was  unsuccessful,  and  by  an  account  of  their 
country  and  the  countries  bordering  on  it.  The  history  of 
Cyrene  is  also  introduced  in  this  book,  on  the  ground,  which  we 
may  doubt,  that  Darius  meditated  an  invasion  in  this  direction 
also.  But  the  plea  serves  as  an  excuse  for  the  development  of 
all  the  information  about  the  tribes  on  the  north  coast  of  Africa 
between  Cyrene  and  Egypt,  which  Herodotus  had  picked  up  from 
the  traders  along  that  coast.  The  invasion  of  Scythia,  though 
unsuccessful,  and  all  but  the  destruction  of  Darius  and  his  army, 
paved  the  way  for  the  invasion  of  Greece  under  Xerxes,  inas- 
much as  it  incidentally  resulted  in  the  conquest  of  the  south 
of  Thrace,  through  which  Xerxes'  army  eventually  marched. 
Accordingly  the  Fifth  book  opens  with  a  description  of  Thrace  ; 
and  then  we  come  to  the  proximate  causes  of  the  first  Persian 
invasion  of  Greece. 

Histiaeus,  the  tyrant  of  Miletus,  who  had  once  saved  Darius, 
but  was  regarded  by  that  monarch  as  too  clever  to  be  allowed 
entire  liberty,  was  nominally  a  guest,  and  really  an  honoured 
prisoner  at  the  Persian  court.  Growing  weary  of  this,  he  secretly 
instigated  the  Ionian  cities  to  revolt,  in  order  that  he  might  bi 


310  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

sent  to  quell  the  insurrection  and  thus  gain  his  liberty.  In  this 
revolt  the  lonians  were  supported  by  tlie  Athenians,  but  not  by 
the  Spartans,  to  whom  they  first  applied  for  help.  The  revolt 
failed,  and  the  attention  of  Darius  was  drawn  to  the  necessity 
of  crushing  Greece.  The  first  expedition  which  he  sent  for  thia 
purpose  failed,  and  the  second  resulted  in  the  glorious  Athenian 
victory  at  Marathon,  a  victory  which  owes  not  a  little  of  its 
immortal  fame  to  the  History  of  Herodotus.  This  closes  the 
Sixth  book. 

The  Seventh  book  opens  with  the  preparations  of  Darius  to 
take  condign  vengeance  on  Athens,  and  the  opportune  revolt  of 
Egypt,  which,  by  delaying  the  invasion  of  Greece  until  the 
death  of  Darius,  left  it  in  the  hands  of  his  unworthy  successor, 
Xerxes,  and  thus  probably  saved  Greece.  The  inception  of  the 
second  Persian  war  is  conceived  by  Herodotus  in  an  epic  spirit. 
Xerxes  is  loth  to  undertake  the  invasion  of  Greece,  but  the 
time  is  come  for  the  wrath  of  the  gods,  provoked  by  the  over- 
weening greatness  of  the  Persians,  to  descend  upon  this  mighty 
empire,  and  false  dreams  are  sent  to  Xerxes  to  drive  him  on 
destruction.  "War  once  resolved  on,  preparations  of  astounding 
magnitude  were  made.  Magazines  were  prepared  along  the  route 
in  advance,  and  the  neighbouring  peoples  engaged  for  months 
in  filling  them  with  stores.  A  canal  was  driven  through  Athos, 
that  the  fleet  might  escape  the  dangerous  necessity  of  rounding 
this  dangerous  point.  Bridges  were  built  across  the  Hellespont, 
and  all  the  many  nations  comprised  in  the  Persian  empire  called 
upon  to  furnish  contingents  of  troops.  The  dress  and  arras  of 
all  these  peoples  are  described  in  the  pages  of  Herodotus,  and 
the  advance  of  this  army,  numbering,  according  to  Herodotus, 
over  five  millions  altogether,  and  probably  the  greatest  the 
world  has  ever  seen,  traced  from  Sardis  on.  This  prepares  the 
reader  to  realise  the  dismay  of  the  Greeks,  the  despair  of  their 
very  oracles,  which  Herodotus  pictures,  and  the  valour  of  the 
handful  of  Greeks  who,  under  Leonidas,  waited  for  death  and 
glory  at  Thermopylae.  The  main  incidents  of  the  Eighth  book 
are  the  battle  of  Salamis  and  the  flight  of  Xerxes,  as  are  tho 
battle  of  Platsea  and  the  flight  of  the  Persian  army  of  the  Ninth 
book. 

Herodotus  is  such  simple  and  delightful  reading,  he  is  so 
unaffected  and  entertaining,  his  story  flows  so  naturally  and 
with  such  ease,  that  we  have  a  difiiculty  in  bearing  in  mind 
that,  over  and  above  the  hard  writing  which  goes  to  make  easy 
reading,  there  is  a  perpetual  marvel  in  the  work  of  Herodotus. 
It  is  the  first  artistic  work  in  prose  that  Greek  literature  pro- 


HISTORY  :    HERODOTUS.  3  I  I 

duced.  This  prose  work,  which  for  pure  literary  merit  no  sub- 
Bequeut  work  lias  surpassed,  than  which  later  generations,  after 
using  the  pen  for  centuries,  have  produced  no  prose  more  easj 
or  more  readable,  this  was  the  first  of  histories  and  of  literary 
prose. 

Without  attempting  to  analyse  the  literary  merit  of  Hero- 
dotus, it  will  be  enough  here  to  point  out  one  or  two  of  ita 
constituent  elements,  a  comprehension  of  which  will  throw  light 
on  the  development  of  Greek  literature  and  the  position  of 
Herodotus  in  that  development.  In  the  contemplation  of  any 
work  of  art,  after  the  first  period  of  enjoyment,  the  thought 
usually  travels  with  reverence  to  the  artist — what  manner  of 
man  was  he  to  whom  it  was  granted  to  conceive  and  execute 
this  1  And  whereas  a  picture  or  a  statue  conveys  but  little  defi- 
nite information  about  the  artist  as  a  man,  and  the  imagination 
has  to  draw  on  its  own  stores  for  a  likeness  which  may  have 
but  little  resemblance  to  the  original,  it  is  the  privilege  of 
literature  to  convey  information  much  more  definite  in  kind 
and  more  extensive  in  range.  The  extent  to  which  we  thus 
become  acquainted  with  the  man  through  his  writing  may  vary, 
from  the  marked  and  deliberate  way  in  which  Thucydides  with- 
draws himself  and  his  own  views  from  the  reader's  gaze,  to  the 
delightful  intimacy  which  in  reading  Charles  Lamb  we  come  to 
feel  with  the  man.  But  even  with  Thucydides  we  come  to  be 
acquainted,  for  his  very  withdrawal  from  us  gives  us  the  man's 
character.  Herodotus,  however,  belongs  to  the  type,  not  of 
Thucydides,  but  of  Charles  Lamb.  Even  if  the  tale  of  how 
the  Greeks  fought  well  for  liberty,  and  thus  bequeathed  to  us 
the  heritage  of  their  art  and  literature,  were  not  of  interest 
to  us,  we  still  should  read  it  for  the  sake  of  making  the 
acquaintance  of  Herodotus,  by  listening  to  him  as  he  tells  the 
tale.  Or  again,  if,  forgetting  the  sack  of  Sardis,  Herodotus 
says  that  the  Athenians  at  Marathon  were  the  first  Greeks  who 
dared  to  look  the  Persians  in  the  face,  or  makes  the  total  of 
Xerxes'  army  too  great  by  a  million,  or  some  other  conjec- 
tural sum,  this  lessens  our  affection  for  Herodotus  as  little  as 
it  lessens  our  admiration  for  the  Greeks.  They  fought  well, 
and  he  tells  the  tale  well,  and  we  are  the  better  for  the  fight 
and  for  the  tale.  Dulce  et  decorum  est.  The  charm  of  Hero- 
dotus is,  then,  that  in  him  we  are  listening  to  one  who  has 
seen  many  cities  and  known  many  men,  and  is  not  writing 
a  book,  but  telling  in  his  fresh  old  age  the  brave  deeds  that 
were  done  in  the  days  before  him,  and  describing  the  marvels 
of  the  strange  lands  which  in  his  youth  he  had  himself  seen. 


312  fflSTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

That  Herodotus'  narrative  has  the  characteristics  of  a  tale  told 
rather  than  of  a  book  written  is  no  accident,  nor  is  it  to  be 
explained  solely  by  reference  to  the  temper  of  the  man.  It  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  Herodotus  wrote  his  work  for  oral  delivery, 
and  not  for  a  reading  public.  The  Greeks  of  his  time  were  not 
in  the  habit  of  perusing  literature,  each  man  in  the  privacy 
of  his  own  home.  Epic  poetry  they  were  accustomed  to  heat 
recited  in  public.  Lyric  poetry  they  became  acquainted  with 
either  by  hearing  choruses  perform  it  at  some  sacred  festival, 
or — as  in  the  case  of  triumphal  odes — on  some  public  occasion, 
or  by  listening  to  some  friend  reciting  an  ode  of  Alca^us  or 
Theognis  after  a  banquet.  Dramatic  literature  reached  the 
Greek  not  in  the  form  of  books,  but  by  being  performed  before 
him  on  the  stage.  A  reading  public  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
existed  at  this  time ;  for  although  some  public  libraries  were  to 
be  found,  Euripides  was  the  first  private  man  who  possessed  a 
library.  It  was  not,  therefore,  by  spreading  written  copies  of 
his  work  that  an  author  could  hope  to  gain  much  publicity. 
The  prose  writer  at  first  naturally  adopted  the  same  means  as 
the  poet  for  bringing  his  work  before  the  notice  of  the  public ; 
that  is,  he  sought  for  some  opportunity  when  large  numbers  of 
his  fellow-countrymen  were  gathered  together,  and  he  would  be 
able  to  read  to  them  his  productions.^  Such  an  opportunity  was 
found  in  such  a  festival  as  the  Panathensea  at  Athens,  or  the 
national  games  of  Greece.  At  the  latter  we  know  prose  works 
were  regularly  read,  and  special  provision  made  for  their  recita- 
tion. This,  then,  was  the  way  in  which  Herodotus  had  to  gain 
the  ear  of  the  public.  The  idea  is  so  alien  to  the  notions  of  the 
present  day,  with  its  printing-press,  that  at  first  we  are  inclined 
to  doubt  the  possibility  of  any  considerable  portion  of  a  prose 
work — to  say  nothing  of  the  whole  of  Herodotus — being  thus 
recited.  But  when  we  reflect  that  a  speech  such  as  that  of 
Demosthenes  On  the  Crown,  or  that  On  the  Embassy,  is  longer 
than  the  longest  book  of  Herodotus,  and  that  the  Greeks  (like 
the  Japanese  of  the  present  day)  were  accustomed  to  listen  for 
a  whole  day  to  the  performance  of  play  after  play,  we  shall 
have  little  difficulty  in  believing  that  Herodotus  might  easily 
read  at  a  sitting,  say,  the  whole  of  the  Second  book,  describing 
the  land,  the  manners  and  customs,  and  the  history  of  Egypt. 
More  than  this  we  are  not  called  upon  to  believe,  for  what 
evidence  there  is  on  the  point  seems  to  indicate  that  these  reci- 

*  It  is  to  this  practice  that  such  expressions  refer  in  Thucydides  aa 
L  21,  ivl  rb  IT poa ay wydrepov  rrj  aKpodcrei  ;  L  22,  Kal  ii  fih  UKpdaatt 
^OyKeiToi ;  L  2,  ayutnafia  is  rb  irapaxpfip-a.  {i^Mctrot. 


HISTORY  :    HERODOTUS.  3  I  3 

tations  0;  lectures  of  Herodotus  extended  not  to  tlie  whole,  but 
only  to  parts  of  his  work. 

The  well-known  story  that  Thucydides,  as  a  boy,  being  pre- 
sent at  one  of  these  recitations,  burst  into  tears,  and  that  Hero- 
dotus thereupon  declared  the  boy's  nature  was  ripening  towards 
learning,  has  the  appearance  of  being  an  invention  due  to  the 
desire  of  grammarians  to  bring  the  two  great  historians  into 
connection  with  each  other,  and,  further,  is  hard  to  believe  be- 
cause of  the  chronological  difficulties.  If  we  suppose  that  the 
recitation  took  place  when  Thucydides  was  fifteen  years  old, 
B.C.  456,  Herodotus  can  scarcely  have  been  thirty  years  of  age 
then,  had  probably  not  yet  visited  Egypt,  and  could  hardly  have 
composed  any  of  his  work.  But  although  we  may  reject  this 
story,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Lucian  ^  is  right  in  say- 
ing that  Herodotus  gave  recitations  at  the  Olympia,  in  Athens, 
Corinth,  Argos,  and  Sparta.  As  far  as  Athens  is  concerned,  the 
testimony  of  Lucian  is  amply  confirmed  by  Eusebius,^  and  by 
the  author  of  the  attack  on  Herodotus  ( De  Malignitate  Herodoti) 
which  goes  under  the  name  of  Plutarch.  The  latter  (c.  26) 
states  that  the  Athenians  decreed  a  gift  of  ten  talents  to  Hero- 
dotus, and  the  former  states  that  Herodotus  was  "  honoured  " 
by  the  Boule  of  the  Athenians  for  reciting  his  works  to  them. 
These  statements  may  be  regarded  as  referring  to  the  same  cir- 
cumstance, and  as  proving  a  recitation  at  Athens  at  least. 

Taking  it  as  proved  that  Herodotus  did  give  readings  of  his 
History,  we  shall  see  that  the  work  is  not  complete,  and  that 
therefore  his  readings  were  probably  of  selections  from,  and  not 
the  whole  of  his  history.  In  the  first  place,  the  last  chapter  of 
the  last  book  was  presumably  not  meant  to  conclude  the  work. 
It  contains  no  indication  that  it  is  the  last  chapter,  does  not 
sum  up  the  work,  nor  does  it  present  anything  corresponding 
to  the  introduction  at  the  beginning  of  the  history.  In  the 
next  place,  the  History  does  not  comprise  the  last  phases  of  the 
struggle  between  the  Greeks  and  the  barbarians,  the  battles  at 
the  Eurymedon  and  Salamis  in  Cyprus.  ^     It  thus  seems  that 

1  Lucian  flourished  about  A.D.  160,  was  a  Syrian  by  birth,  a  lawyer  by 
profession  ;  was  procurator  of  Egypt  under  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  died  under 
Commodus.  He  wrote,  iu  Greek,  a  large  number  of  amusing  works.  The 
passage  to  which  reference  is  made  in  the  text  occurs  in  Lucian's  Herodotus 
or  jEtion,  a  light  and  humorous  appeal  to  the  educated  public  of  Mace- 
donia to  give  Lucian's  works  a  favourable  reception. 

*  See  ante,  p.  69  n. 

3  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  should  be  observed  that  Herodotus  may  have 
regarded  the  Persian  wars  as  the  consummation  of  the  struggle  between 
Greek  and  barbarian,  and  may  have  considered  the  repulse  of  the  latter  from 
Greece  as  the  natural  conclusion  of  the  fight  for  liberty.    In  that  case,  to 


314  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Herodotus  must  have  contemplated  continuing  his  work  down 
to  a  later  date  than  it  reaches  as  we  have  it.  If,  in  objection 
to  this,  it  is  alleged  that  the  division  of  the  work  into  nine 
hooks,  named  after  the  Muses,  excludes  the  possibility  of  a 
tenth  having  been  added,  it  is  only  necessary  to  point  out  that 
there  is  no  evidence  in  the  work  itself  of  any  such  division. 
"When  Herodotus  wishes  in  any  passage  to  refer  to  some  othei 
passage,  he  does  not  refer  to  the  number  of  the  book,  as  Jose- 
phus,  for  instance,  does,  but  says  "  in  the  former "  or  "  the 
latter  part  of  my  History."  ^  The  first  author  who  knows  the 
division  into  books  is  Diodorus  Siculus,^  and  the  first  who 
knows  them  by  the  names  of  the  Muses  is  Lucian.  From  this 
we  may  infer  that  it  was  by  the  Alexandrine  grammarians  that 
the  names  of  the  Muses  were  given  to  the  books. 

Not  only  does  Herodotus  seem  to  have  broken  off  withoui 
bringing  his  History  down  to  its  proper  termination,  but  he  also 
seems  not  to  have  finished  that  which  he  did  write.  Thus  h* 
promises^  to  say  more  about  Ephialtes  (who  betrayed  th« 
Greeks  at  Thermopylae)  in  a  later  part  of  the  History,  but  never 
does  say  anything  more.  He  also  promises  *  to  give  an  account 
of  the  capture  of  Nineveh  by  the  Medes,  but  he  never  redeems 
his  promise.  Again,^  he  promises  to  say  more  about  the  Baby- 
lonian kings  in  his  "  Assyrian  History,"  but  we  have  no  Assy- 
rian history.  Whether  Herodotus  ever  wrote  the  Assyrian 
history  which  he  promises,  and  whether,  if  he  wrote  it,  he  in- 
tended to  publish  it  separately  or  as  part  of  the  work  we  have, 
are  questions  which  do  not  seem  to  admit  of  being  settled. 
Aristotle  ^  alludes  to  an  account  of  the  siege  of  Nineveh — by 
Herodotus  according  to  some  MSS.,  by  Hesiod  according  to 
most  MSS.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  Hesiod  could  come 
to  be  writing  of  the  siege  of  Nineveh,  and  this  difficulty,  to- 
gether with  the  fact  that  Herodotus,  as  we  have  seen,  certainly 
intended,  at  least,  to  give  an  account  of  the  siege,  incline  us 
rather  to  think  that  Herodotus  did  write  his  Assyrian  history.' 

relate  the  operations  of  Cimon  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  would  be  an  anti- 
climax, and,  further,  would  have  carried  Herodotus  into  the  period  of  inter- 
n&l  dissension  which  led  to  tlip  Peloponnesian  war,  and  is  as  repugnant  to 
the  national  feeling  which  predoininates  his  work  as  it  was  lamentable  to  hii 
pan-Hellenic  mind. 

1  In  V.  36  he  refers  to  i.  92  ;  in  i.  75  to  i.  107  ;  in  vii.  93  to  i.  171 ;  in  ii. 
161  to  iv.  159 ;  in  v.  22  to  viii.  137  ;  in  vi.  19  to  i.  92. 

^  xi.  37.  Diodorus  of  Sicily  flourished  about  B.C.  40 ;  he  wrote  a  huge  his- 
tory in  forty  books  (^t^XLoOrjKr)),  dealing  with  a  period  of  noo  years  (ending 
with  the  conquest  of  Gaul  by  Csesar\     We  have  Books  i.-v.  and  xi.-xx. 

3  vii.  213.  ••  i.  106. 

•  i.  184.  *  Hist.  An.  viii.  18. 

'  Th*  diflSi'Julty  of  the  word  reiroir)Ke  being  used  by  Aristotlw— a  wor4 


HISTORY  :    HEKODOTUS.  3  I  5 

In  this  case,  it  was  not  incorporated  ^  with  the  work  which  wo 
possess,  as  Herodotus  seems  to  have  intended,  and  this  is  a 
fresh  indication  that  the  work  is  incomplete.  Thus,  although 
Herodotus  gave  various  readings  from  his  work  before  he  finally 
settled  down  in  Thurii,  and  evidently  wrote  or  revised  many 
passages  of  the  last  four  books  during  his  stay  at  Thurii,^  he 
yet  neither  brought  the  work  to  a  conclusion  nor  completed  his 
revision. 

Unfinished  though  the  work  is,  it  is  so  far  from  being  left  i» 
a  disorderl)  state,  that  one  of  its  charms,  and  of  its  points  of 
superiority  over  previous  prose,  is  its  unity.  This  unity  is  due 
to  its  simplicity  of  conception.  Herodotus'  one  theme  is  the 
conflict  between  the  Greeks  and  the  barbarians,  and  with  this 
theme  all  the  episodes  have  a  direct  connection.  To  this  simple 
conception  Herodotus  was  led  by  the  sentiment  of  nationality, 
which  nerved  the  better-minded  Greeks  to  their  successful  re- 
sistance, but  unfortunately  was  disappearing  rapidly  in  the  later 
years  of  Herodotus'  own  life.  The  Hellas  of  Herodotus  includes 
Miletus  and  Gyrene,  Sicily  and  Ehodes.^  He  evidently  has 
great  sympathy  with  that  state  which  made  the  greatest  sacri- 
fices for  the  national  good  in  the  Persian  wars — Athens  ;  and 
with  a  boldness  which,  in  view  of  the  envy  and  hatred  that 
was  rife  against  Athens  at  the  time  he  wr  te,  deserves  credit, 
he  does  not  hesitate  to  show  it.  Thus  he  properly  calls  atten- 
tion *  to  the  patriotism  of  the  Athenians  in  resigning  the  com- 
mand of  the  fleet  to  tlie  Spartans  (though,  as  they  contributed 
the  largest  contingent,  they  had  the  best  claim  to  take  the  mari- 
time lead),  rather  than  cause  dissension  among  the  allied  Greeks  ; 
and  he  rather  goes  out  of  his  way  to  declare^  that,  however 

more  naturally  applying  to  the  poet  Hesiod  rather  than  the  historian  Hero- 
dotus—goes for  little.     Lucian  uses  the  word  ^5wj'  of  Herodotus. 

That  Ctesias  wrote  in  order  to  explode  Herodotus'  Assyrian  history  there 
is  no  evidence  to  show.  But  if  Herodotus  did  write  an  Assyrian  history,  we 
might  conjecture  that  Ctesias'  object  was  to  attack  him. 

1  i.  84  seems  to  show  that  Herodotus  intended  to  incorporate  it,  and  iii. 
160  would  be  the  natural  place.  That  the  Medes,  and  not  the  Persians,  de- 
stroyed the  Assyrian  power  (Bachof,  Fleckeisen's  Jahrbuch,  1877)  would  not 
prevent  Herodotus  from  utilising  his  Assyrian  notes. 

-  Stein  (Introd.  23)  gives  the  following  passages  referring  to  B.C.  432  or 
later :  v  77  mention  of  the  Propylaea,  finished  in  B.C.  431  ;  vii.  233,  seizure 
of  Platsese  by  the  Thebans,  B.C.  431  ;  vi.  91,  expulsion  of  the  .^ginetse,  B.o. 
431;  vii.  137,  execution  of  the  Spartan  ambassadors  at  Athens,  B.C.  430; 
ix.  73  and  vi.  98,  references  to  the  Peloponnesian  war.  Thurii  was  founded 
B.O.  444,  and,  even  if  Herodotus  did  not  go  there  in  that  year,  he  probably 
was  there  from  B.C.  432  on. 

2  See  Stein  and  Wood  (Catena  Clatsicorum)  on  i.  92.  See  also  viL  1:7  and 
iL  182. 

*  viii.  3.  «  vii  139. 


3  1 6  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

unpopular  the  opinion  may  be,  he  is  convinced  that  the  Athe- 
nians, when  they  abandoned  Athens  and  took  to  their  "  wooden 
walls  "  in  accordance  with  the  oracle,  saved  Hellas.  The  dem()- 
cratic  government  of  Athens  also  pleased  him.  He  disapproved 
of  tyranny  and  of  oligarchy,  and  believed  in  equality ;  and  he 
ascribes  the  rise  of  Athens  to  her  escape  from  tyranny.^  But 
this  liking  for  Athens  does  not  make  him  a  blind  partisan.  Ho 
has  praise  for  Athens'  great  rival,  Sparta,^  and  even  for  the 
courage  of  the  Boeotians,^  although  they  were  traitors,  and  for 
the  Corinthians.* 

Herodotus'  breadth  of  view  and  his  sentiment  of  nationality 
is  due  in  part  to  his  extensive  travels,  which  tended  to  make 
him  cosmopolitan,  and  feel  his  kinship  with  all  Hellenes  where- 
soever planted ;  but  it  is  still  more  due  to  his  being  an  Asiatic 
Greek.  The  natural  boundary  of  the  Persian  kingdom  towards 
the  west  was  the  ^geean,  and  farther  than  this  Persian  states- 
men would  have  had  little  temptation  to  extend  their  rule  but 
for  the  Greeks  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  The  relation  of 
Greece  to  the  Persian  empire  was  in  the  time  of  Darius  much 
like  that  of  Britain  to  the  Roman  empire.  The  Channel  might 
have  remained  the  boundary  of  Roman  rule  but  for  the  fact 
that  the  tribes  of  Gaul  found  a  perpetual  refuge  and  an  ever- 
ready  assistance  from  their  kinsfolk  in  Britain,  and  therefore 
peace  could  not  be  lasting  in  Gaul  until  Britain  also  was  sub- 
dued. The  Greek  cities  in  Asia  Minor,  in  the  same  way,  could 
not  be  expected  to  become  contented  subjects  of  the  great  king 
so  long  as  their  brethren  across  the  iEgaean  remained  free.  It 
was  to  the  Greeks  in  Greece,  without  distinction,  that  the  Greeks 
in  Asia  Minor  looked  for  assistance  in  their  struggles  against 
the  barbarians,  whether  Persian  or  Lydian,  and  this  of  itself 
served  to  make  the  Asiatic  Greeks  think  little  of  minor  divi- 
sions and  much  of  tlieir  common  nationality. 

A  strong  national  feeling,  then,  running  all  through  Hero- 
dotus' work,  is  one  thing  which  gives  unity  to  his  History. 
Another  is  the  predominance  of  the  religious  feeling  of  Nemesis, 
a  theory  which  the  overthrow  of  the  enormous  power  of  Persia 
by  a  handful  of  Greeks  is  regarded  }>y  Herodotus  as  verifying.* 
Kemesis,  the  visitation  which  lights  from  heaven  on  over-great 
prosperity,  as  the  lightning  strikes  the  tallest   trees   and  the 

*  V.  78.  *  vii.  102,  220. 

'  ix.  67.  *  V.  75,  92. 

»  1-8,  13,  34,  91,  130,  141,  189;  iv.  I ;  Ti.  44;  Tii.  8-12,  16,  18,  20,  303; 

iz.  113. 


HISTOBY:    HERODOTUS.  317 

loftiest  houses,'*  does  not  appear  in  Homer,^  but  is  to  be  found 
in  Hesiod,^  in  Pindar,*  ^Eschylus,^  Sophocles,^  and  Euripides.^ 
The  workings  of  Nemesis  are  seen  by  Herodotus  not  only  in  the 
defeat  of  Persia,  but  in  the  fall  of  Croesus  ^  and  of  Apries,' 
and  in  the  tales  of  Polycrates  (iii.  40),  Oroetes  (iii.  128),  Ary 
andes  (iv.  166),  Pheretime  (iv.  205),  Cleomenes  (vi.  84),  Talthy- 
bius  (vii.  137),  and  the  death  of  Mardonius  (ix.  64);  in  the 
result  of  Cyrus'  expedition  against  the  Massagetse,  that  of 
Cambyses  against  the  Ethiopians,  and  of  Darius  against  the 
Scyths  (vii,  18).  Nemesis  is  incurred  by  conspicuous  pros- 
perity, but  the  absence  of  such  prosperity  is  no  safeguard, ^"^ 
for  no  one  may  escape  from  the  "envy"  or  "jealousy"  of  tlie 
gods.  Short  as  life  is,  Herodotus  says,^^  there  never  yet  was 
or  will  be  a  man  who  does  not  wish  more  than  once  that  he 
were  dead  :  Heaven  gives  man  a  taste,  but  grudges  him  more  of 
the  pleasure  of  life.  Thus  Nemesis  and  jealousy,  together  cover- 
ing the  whole  of  human  experience,  afford  a  universally  appli- 
cable explanation  of  the  vicissitudes  through  which  indivi- 
duals and  countries  go  ;  and  these  vicissitudes  it  is  the  business 
of  the  historian  to  record.  This  is  Herodotus'  philosophy  0/ 
history. 

His  God  is  not  only  a  jealous  God,  but  one  who  visits  the 
sins  of  the  fathers  on  the  children.  That  Heaven  punished 
offenders  in  their  own  persons  and  rewarded  the  righteous, 
Herodotus  firmly  believed,  and  he  records  many  instances  in 
which  this  happened. ^^  But  there  remained  cases  which  Hero- 
dotus, like  Solon  and  .^schylus,  seemed  to  think  found  a  satis- 
factory explanation  in  ancestral  guilt.  Thus  Croesus  paid  the 
penalty  for  Gyges'  crime. -^^ 

Polytheism  Herodotus  practically  abandons.     He  prefers  not 

*  vii.  10. 

•  But  we  find,  e.g.  Od.  xiv.  283  — 

Atis  ^eivlov,  5<rT€  /xaXiffra  vefiecrffarai  kuko.  ipya 

*  Op.  198  ;  Tk.  223.  *  Pyth.  X.  65 ;  01.  viii.  114. 

•  S.  c.  Th.  419  and  430  et  seq.  ;  P.  V.  936.        6  _^y_  y^g ;  Phil.  776. 
'  Fr.  964  *  i.  34-  *  iii.  40. 

^'  Herodotus  does  indeed  say,  vii.  10,  that  whereas  God  does  not  allow  the 
grest  to  vaunt  themselves,  the  small  cause  him  no  irritation.  But  this  pro- 
bably should  be  considered  merely  an  antithetical  way  of  emphasizing  the 
doctrine  of  Nemesis,  and  not  as  inconsistent  with  the  passage  refeiTed  to  in 
the  next  note. 

^  vii.  46. 

"  E.y.  i.  19,  22,  34,  86,  87,  91,  130,  159,  167 ;  ii,  in,  113,  120;  iii.  126 ;  iy. 
136,  205 ;  V.  56,  66,  72,  76,  79,  80 ;  vi,  72,  84,  86 ;  viii.  36,  37,  67,  129  ;  ix, 
93,  94. 

'^  See  i.  8,  13,  91.     Other  instances,  iv,  149  ;  vii.  137,  197. 


3  I  8  fflSTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

to  commit  himself,^  and,  tliougli  he  tells  many  stories  of  tin 
gods,  is  careful  not  to  guarantee  them,^  when  he  does  not  deny 
them.  3  In  the  spirit  of  toleration  he  allows  that  the  effects 
of  an  earthquake  might  be  regarded  as  the  work  of  Poseidon.* 
Strange  to  say,  he  speaks  of  the  sun  as  a  god.^  Perhaps  this  is 
a  mere  and  natural  inconsistency,  or  he  may  have  deliberately 
used  the  expression  to  guard  himself  from  the  charge  of  atheism, 
which  a  denial  of  the  sun's  divinity  brought  on  Anaxagoras, 
with  whom  he  may  have  been,  and  with  whose  works  he  pro- 
bably was,  acquainted.^  But,  although  not  a  polytheist,  Hero- 
dotus was  not  an  atheist.  He  believes  in  a  God  and  in  fate.^ 
From  fate  neither  man  *  nor  even  god  can  escape.^  It  is  thus 
that  many  things,  otherwise  hard  to  understand,  are  to  be  ex- 
plained ;  ^°  and  Herodotus  is  never  weary  of  pointing  out  how 
everything  was  ordained  by  Providence. ^^  Consistently  with 
this  belief  in  fate,  Herodotus  believes  in  oracles  as  a  means 
of  finding  out  what  is  fated.  ^^  Instances  of  non-fulfilment  of  an 
oracle  are,  of  course,  explained  away  ;  either  the  inquirer  was 
guilty  in  some  way,^^  or  the  oracle  was  a  forgery,^*  or  due  to 
bribery.  ^^  It  further  harmonises  with  this  belief  in  fate  and 
oracles  that  Herodotus  believed  also  in  omens. ^^ 

1  ix.  65. 

2  E.g.  i.  122  ;  ii.  44,  50,  53,  57,  122,  123  ;  iii.  7,  16,  iii ;  iv.  15,  179  ;  v.  86  ; 
▼i.  69,  80,  105,  117  ;  vii.  129,  152. 

3  E.g.  i.  182  ;  ii.  57.  *  vii.  129.  6  U.  24. 

'  Cf.  his  derivation,  ii.  52,  of  6e6i — Kbfffn^  Oivret — with  Anaxagoras 
account  of  creation  (Ritter  and  Preller,  52),  irdvra  xp^M*'"o  ?"  bfiov.  elra 
vovs  e\6i}v  avTo,  di€K6crfni<7€. 

'  6  6t6s,  6  Saifxuv,  rb  5atfx6viov,  rb  xp^'-'j",  l^oipa,  veirpwixivyj.  Cf.  the  ex- 
pressions iSee,  i/xeWe,  XPV'''^^^  /card  KeKpifxivov,  i.  8,  91  ;  ii.  133,  161  ; 
iii.  139,  153  ;  iv.  92  ;  vi.  64  ;  vii.  116,  146  ;  viii.  54  ;  ix.  93,  109. 

8  i.  91  ;  iii.  44,  65  ;  vii.  17  ;  viii.  6,  13  ;  ix.  16. 

»  i.  91. 

1"  E.g.  i.  4$,  86,  87,  90,  129,  155,  162  ;  ii.  120,  133,  139,  161  ;  iii.  21,  30,  43, 
119  ;  iv.  79  ;  V.  33,  92  ;  vi.  64,  135  ;  vii.  10,  12,  16 ;  ix.  91. 

"  i-  45,  53-55,  62,  87,  91,  118,  120,  155,  159  ;  ii.  120,  133,  139,  161 ;  iii.  77, 
X08,  142  ;  iv.  8,  79,  150-159,  164 ;  V.  92  ;  vii.  170 ;  viii.  6-13,  94,  100,  101  ; 
ix.  91- 

^-  The  chief  instances  of  oracles  are  :  i.  7,  13,  46,  53,  55,  65  seq.,  91,  165 ; 
11.  18,  29,  139,  155  ;  iii.  57,  64 ;  iv.  150-156,  203  ;  v.  90  seq.  ;  vi.  76  aeq.,  86, 
135;  vii.  Ill,  140-148,  220;  viii.  36,  114,  134;  ix.  33,  93. 

1*  E.a.  Glaucus,  vi.  86,  or  Croesus,  i.  91. 

1*  vii,  6. 

'5  Especially  in  the  case  of  the  P\'thia,  e.a.  ii.  49  ;  v.  63  ;  vi.  66. 

^*  i.  23,  59,  78,  87,  159,  167,  175  ;  ii.  10,  46,  82  ;  iii.  76,  86,  153  ;  iv.  64,  79, 
203  ;  V.  98  ;  vi.  27,  82,  98,  107,  117  ;  vii.  37,  57  seq.,  219  seq.  ;  viii.  20.  37  seq., 
41,  64  seq.  ;  ix.  91.  Witli  this  belief  in  destiny  and  oracles  Herodotus  natu- 
rally presents  us  with  examples  of  the  irony  of  fortune,  e.(j.  the  tale  of 
Adrastus,  whose  very  endeavour  to  save  is  the  means  of  his  killing  Croesus' 
son  Atys,  wliose  death  by  a  spear  had  been  f  retold  to  and  fiuarded  against 
by  Croesus  (i.  34-45).     It  ix  interesting  to  observe  that  the  irony  of  fortune. 


history:    HERODOTUS.  3I9 

The  belief  of  Herodotus  in  Nemesis  and  fate  gives  unity  to 
his  work,  for  the  history  which  he  relates  is  regarded  by  him 
as  but  the  working  out  of  a  divine  plan  preordained  from  all 
time.  But  a  theory  is  dangerous  for  a  historian,  who  may  un- 
consciously be  drawn  into  adapting  facts  to  suit  his  theory,  and 
it  thus  becomes  necessary  to  examine  the  credibility  of  Hera 
dotus.  The  credibility  of  a  writer  depends  on  his  capacity,  hi? 
honesty,  and  his  means  of  information.  Under  the  head  ol 
capacity  we  have  to  distinguish  between  the  capacity  of  a  writer 
for  stating  the  results  of  his  own  observation  and  his  capacity 
for  estimating  the  evidence  of  others  :  and  in  the  case  of  Hero- 
dotus it  is  the  more  necessary  to  observe  this  distinction,  be- 
cause, in  conformity  with  the  custom  of  logographers,  he  regarded 
it  quite  as  much  part  of  his  task  to  describe  the  land,  monu- 
ments, habits,  and  customs  of  the  peoples  whose  history  he  was 
writing,  as  to  write  their  history.  The  historical  events  which 
Herodotus  recorded  happened  before  his  time,  and  came  to  him 
from  the  lips  of  others ;  but  the  descriptions  of  countries  and 
peoples  are,  to  a  great  extent,  the  result  of  his  own  travels. 
"With  regard,  then,  to  his  capacity  for  this  portion  of  his  work, 
the  essential  conditions  are  that  he  should  have  been  an  accu- 
rate observer,  and  that  he  should  be  able  to  distinguish  in  his 
statements  between  what  he  himself  observed  and  what  he  was 
told  by  others.  But  in  forming  our  opinion  we  should  be  on 
our  guard  against  applying  the  standard  of  modern  times  to  an 
ancient  author.  Thus,  naturalists  of  the  present  day — owing 
partly  to  the  modern  taste  for  sport  and  to  modern  weapons  of 
precision — are  accustomed  to  much  closer  study,  both  of  speci- 
mens and  of  the  habits  of  the  living  animal,  than  any  Greek 
naturaHsts.  We  are  not,  therefore,  surprised  to  find  that  the 
acquaintance  of  Herodotus  with  crocodiles  and  hippopotami  was 
a  distant  one ;  that  he  has  no  accurate  measurements  of  the 
latter,  and  little  knowledge  of  the  conformation  of  the  jaws 
of  the  former  ;  that  he  is  apt  to  confound  the  poisonous  asp 
with  the  equally  venomous  homed  viper ;  that  he  makes  mis- 
takes about  pisciculture  ;  and  accepts  without  close  investigation 
what  he  was  told  by  the  natives.    In  this  branch  of  knowledge, 

which,  thoagh  it  is  not,  as  has  sometimes  been  supposed,  a  peculiarly  Sopho- 
clean  conception,  is  thoroughly  rooted  in  Greek  literature  from  Homer  on* 
wards,  is  not  by  any  means  peculiar  to,  nor  is  its  earliest  instance  found  in, 
Greek  literature.  Seventeen  hundred  years  before  Christ,  a  story,  which  ia 
preserved  in  the  Harris  papyrus  (500,  translated  in  the  Rcrords  of  the  Past, 
ii.  153-160),  was  told  in  Egypt  of  a  prince  whose  death,  fated  and  foretold, 
was,  in  accordance  with  the  prediction,  brought  about  by  his  dog,  which 
tried  to  save  him. 


320  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Herodotus  falls  below  the  modern,  but  not  below  the  ancient, 
standard,  and  will  compare  favourably  with  Aristotle,  who 
wrote  on  zoology.  If  we  set  aside  this  special  department  of 
inquiry,  and  consider  him  not  as  a  naturalist,  but  as  a  general 
observer,  we  find,  in  the  first  place,  that  he  recognises  the  dif- 
ference between  the  evidence  of  his  own  eyes  and  hearsay,* 
and  that  he  is  generally  careful  to  inform  us  to  which  kind  of 
testimony  a  statement  belongs.^  In  the  next  place,  it  is  gene- 
rally admitted  that  "  what  he  saw  himself  he  may  be  supposed 
to  describe  with  fair  accuracy."  ^  Everything,  of  course,  he  did 
not  observe.  He  does  not  state,  for  instance,  that  the  Egyptians 
used  gold  and  glass  as  well  as  bronze  for  drinking  vessels ;  that 
they  ate  wheaten  as  well  as  other  bread  ;  *  that  women  as  well 
as  men  plied  the  loom  in  Egypt,^  and  that  they  drove  the  woof 
upwards  as  well  as  downwards.  But,  nevertheless,  he  gives 
us  a  picture  of  Egypt  as  he  saw  it,  the  charm  of  which  is  in- 
disputable, and  which  is  as  valuable  as  it  is  charming. 

As  an  observer,  then,  Herodotus  may  be  credited  with  capa- 
city. In  the  historical  portions  of  his  work  we  must  look  for 
other  qualities  to  establish  his  capacity.  To  begin  with,  he  has 
the  first  great  quality  of  a  historian  :  he  distinguishes  between 
facts  and  his  inferences  from  them.  What  was  told  to  him  he 
tells  to  us,  and  gives  us  his  authority  ;  he  draws  his  own  infer- 
ences, but  also  gives  his  reader  the  opportunity  to  draw  other 
inferences.*  Further,  he  does  not  present  us  with  that  version 
alone  of  an  event  which  he  considers  most  likely,  but  lays 
before  the  reader  all  the  versions  with  which  he  is  acquainted, 
choosing  one  himself,  but  also  leaving  the  reader  liberty  of 
choice.^  Again,  he  is  free  from  the  error  of  infallibility  ;  if  he 
cannot  test  the  truth  of  a  story,  he  admits  his  ignorance.^ 

As  Herodotus  is  so  careful  to  distinguish  between  what  he 
has  heard  and  what  he  infers  therefrom,  and  to  give  his  autho- 
rities, his  capacity  for  estimating  evidence  becomes  a  matter  of 

1  ii.  99. 

'  E.g.  li.  99 ;  i.  184 ;  ii.  120,  29,  53,  113  ;  iii.  45 ;  iv.  173,  179,  187. 

*  Prof.  Sayce's  Herodotus,  p.  xxxii. 

*  ii.  37.  5  ii.  36. 

^  vii.  152  ;  li.  123,  146 ;  iii,  9  ;  iv.  195  ;  v.  45  ;  vii.  239. 

'  E.g.  he  gives  two  accounts  of  Cambyses'  murder  of  bis  sister,  of  the 
origin  of  Cambyses'  war  against  Egypt  (iii.  i),  of  the  fate  of  the  Samiant 
sent  to  Cambyses  by  Polycrates  (iii.  45),  of  the  motives  of  cert.iin  Spartana 
in  supporting  the  insurgents  against  Polycrates  (iii.  46),  of  the  loss  of  the 
Spartan  bowl  sent  to  Cyrus  (i.  70),  of  the  story  of  lo  (i.  3),  of  the  motives 
of  Orestes  in  assassinating  Polycrates,  of  the  origin  of  the  Scyths,  aud  of 
the  feud  between  Athens  and  Egina. 

^  o{)€  fx'*  &TpiKiia%  elir(u>  is  a  perpetually  recoiring  formula  with 
him. 


history:    HERODOTUS.  32  1 

less  consequence.  But  he  is  fully  aware  of  the  importance  of 
getting  evidence  at  first  hand,  if  possible,^  and  naturally  prefers 
that  version  of  an  event  which  has  the  best  evidence  to  support 
it.  It  is,  however,  at  this  point  that  his  theory  of  Nemesis  and 
fate  affects  his  credibility  as  a  historian.  When  the  evidence 
for  two  versions  of  an  event  was  about  equal,  Herodotus  cannot 
be  blamed  for  choosing  that  version  which  accords  with  his 
theory.  In  such  a  case  it  is  perfectly  legitimate  to  take  into 
account  the  tendency  of  a  general  law,  and  to  give  weight  to 
general  considerations.  What  is  not  legitimate  is  for  the  his- 
torian to  imagine  that  conformity  with  his  theory  dispenses  him 
from  the  necessity  of  further  investigation ;  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  his  theory  frequently  led  Herodotus  into  taking  a 
superficial  view  of  history,  accepting  fate  as  a  sufficient  explana- 
tion of  an  event,  about  the  causes  of  which  he  might  have  found 
out  and  told  us  more.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  not  the  least 
reason  to  believe  that  he  ever  rejected  the  better-attested  ver- 
sion because  it  did  not  harmonise  with  his  theory.  He  believed 
his  theory  to  be  well  enough  established  to  dispense  with  such 
props,  and  has  no  hesitation  in  rejecting  an  application  of  the 
doctrine  of  Nemesis  when  the  facts  do  not  support  it.  Nor  does 
his  appetite  for  the  marvellous — although  it  occasionally  led 
him  to  record,  if  not  to  believe,  some  very  extraordinary  tales  told 
him  in  the  East,  as,  e.g.  that  about  the  cats  in  Egypt — prevent 
him  from  exercising  a  perpetual  criticism  on  what  he  was  told  or 
from  frequently  rejecting  the  stories  he  heard. 

Herodotus'  capacity  as  a  historical  writer  is  marred  by  his 
tendency  to  overlook  general  causes  and  to  see  only  personal 
motives,  to  substitute  occasions  for  causes.  Thus,  he  ascribes 
the  revolt  of  the  Persians  from  the  Medes  to  personal  motives 
on  the  part  of  Harpagus  and  Cyrus  ;  the  conquest  of  Egypt  by 
Cambyses  to  an  eye-doctor's  desire  for  revenge  ;  Darius'  design 
of  invading  Greece  to  the  intrigues  of  Deraocedes,  the  enslaved 
physician,  who  longed  to  return  to  Greece  ;  the  Ionian  revolt  to 
the  pecuniary  difficulties  of  Aristagoras  ;  the  Persian  invasion 
of  Samos  under  Darius  to  the  monarch's  gratitude  to  Syloson  ; 
and  the  eff'eminacy  of  the  Lydians  to  Croesus'  suggestion  to 
Cyrus  that  they  should  be  compelled  to  live  luxuriously.  But 
here,  again,  Herodotus  is  no  worse  than  the  greatest  philosophers 
of  Greece,  who  imagined,  for  instance,  that  the  unnatural  camp- 
life  of  the  Spartans  was,  not  the  result  of  hostile  pressure  from 
without,  exerted  for  centuries,  but  due  to  the  fiat  of  a  single 
lawgiver,  and  also  believed  that  a  similar  state  of  things  could 

1  iii.  115. 


322  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

be  brought  about  elsewhere  by  the  mere  command  of  a  philo- 
sophical king. 

Another  defect  which  Herodotus  shared  in  common  with 
other  Greek  writers,  and  which,  though  in  a  different  way, 
marred  the  philosophy  as  well  as  the  history  of  Greek  writers, 
was  ignorance  of  foreign  languages.  In  the  course  of  hia 
travels  he  picked  up  about  a  score  of  foreign  words ;  ^  but 
when  he  says  ^  that  Persian  proper  names  express  always  some 
bodily  or  mental  excellence,  and  that  they  invariably  end  in  s, 
he  betrays  his  ignorance  of  the  language.  So,  too,  his  remark 
that  the  language  of  the  Troglodytes,^  of  the  Egyptians,  and  of 
foreigners  generally  ^  was  like  the  chirping  of  birds,  shows  that 
he  had  learnt  no  language  but  his  own. 

The  result  of  this  ignorance  of  foreign  languages  was  that 
Herodotus  had  to  depend  for  much  of  his  information  about 
the  foreign  countries  he  visited  on  interpreters  ;  and  this  brings 
us  to  the  second  point  we  have  to  consider  in  connection  with 
the  credibility  of  Herodotus — his  means  of  information.  la 
the  case  of  public  monuments  or  documents,  of  which  there 
existed  authentic  translations  from  the  original  into  Greek, 
Herodotus'  linguistic  ignorance  would  not  vitiate  his  statements, 
and  it  is  probable  that  it  was  on  such  translations  that  his 
accounts  of  Darius'  cadastral  system,^  the  itinerary  to  Sardis,' 
and  the  description  of  Xerxes'  army  '^  rested.  But  in  the  case 
of  inscriptions  which  he  had  to  get  translated  by  his  interpreter, 
e.g.  the  inscriptions  about  the  amount  of  onions  consumed  dur- 
ing the  building  of  a  pyramid,^  or  about  the  method  of  building 
a  pyramid,^  or  the  pillars  in  Palestine  commemorating  the  con- 
quests, whether  of  Sesostris  or  Eameses  II.  or  the  Hittites,^* 
obviously  the  translation  depended  on  the  capacity  of  the  trans- 
lator, not  of  Herodotus,  and  is  of  uncertain  value.  Considera- 
tions of  this  sort  apply  to  the  whole  of  Herodotus'  Persian  and 
Egyptian  history.  He  depended  entirely  on  his  interpreter  or 
dragoman,  and  the  result  is  that  we  have  rather  folk-lore  than 
history,  the  tale  of  Rhampsinitus,  and  not  the  real  history  of  the 
Egyptian  dynasties  ;  and  we  are  the  gainers.  The  monuments 
will  reveal  to  us  in  course  of  time  the  history  of  the  kings  of 
Egypt,  but  Herodotus  has  given  us  what  the  monuments  cannot 


1  They  will  be  found  in  i.  105,  no,  139,  172,  187,  192  ;  ii.  2,  30,  46,  09,  77, 
81,  94,  105,  143  ;  iii.  8,  88 ;  iv.  23,  27,  52,  59,  no,  117,  155,  192  ;  v.  9  ;  vi.  98, 
119  ;  vjii.  85,  98  ;  ix.  no. 

2  i.  140.  3  iv.  183.  *  ii.  57.  *  iii.  89. 
«  V.  52.                       '  vii.  60  seq.                *  ii.  125.                   •  ii.  136. 

10  ii.  IQ2,  136.  Commentators  differ  very  much  on  these  passages.  Othef 
erroneously  translated  inscriiitions,  i.  187  ;  iiL  88. 


history:    HERODOTUS.  323 

reveal,  and  what  would  have  otherwise  utterly  perished — a  faith* 
ful  and  charming  version  of  the  popular  stories  current  iu  the 
streets  of  Memphis  in  his  day. 

With  Herodotus'  Greek  history  the  case  is  different.  Soma 
of  the  inscriptions  which  he  consulted  were  undoubtedly  for- 
geries, e.g.  the  Cadmeian  inscriptions  at  Thebes,^  and  were 
known  by  himself  to  be  forgeries,  e.g.  the  offerings  of  Croesus  at 
Delphi  falsely  inscribed  as  offerings  from  Sparta.^  But  many 
were  genuine  and  valuable,  e.g.  those  on  the  field  of  Thermo- 
pylse,^  the  list  at  Delphi  of  the  Greeks  at  Salamis  *  and  Plataese.* 
and  that  of  Mandrocles  in  the  temple  of  Here  at  Samos.^  The 
value  of  his  accounts  of  the  various  ancient  works  of  art  which 
he  saw  is  less  than  that  of  the  inscriptions.  Thus  what  Hero- 
dotus tells  us  of  Croesus,  Alyattes,  and  Gyges  may  possibly  have 
been  the  tales  which  clung  to  the  offerings  sent  by  those  rulers 
to  Delphi.''^  But  the  myth  which  was  told  about  Arion  in  con- 
nection with  the  erection  on  Tsenarum,^  and  that  about  Ladike 
and  her  offering  at  Cyrene,^  suffice  to  show  that  little  confidence 
can  be  placed  in  this  kind  of  evidence. 

By  far  the  larger  part  of  Herodotus'  information,  however, 
was  necessarily  drawn  from  the  lips  of  the  people  with  whom 
he  became  acquainted.  The  history  of  the  Persian  wars  had 
not  been  committed  to  writing,  and  Herodotus  had,  therefore, 
to  rely  on  oral  testimony.  This  is  for  the  purposes  of  history 
generally  inferior  evidence,  but  its  value  is  materially  affected 
by  the  number  of  persons  through  whom  it  is  transmitted. 
Next  to  the  evidence  of  eye-witnesses,  that  of  contemporaries 
ranks,  and  Herodotus  could  and  did  get  information  from  both 
classes.  This  guarantees  the  substantial  truth  of  his  history, 
but  does  not  allow  us  to  put  much  faith  in  his  statistics,  or  in 
any  point  in  which  minute  accuracy  is  needed. 

But  although  Herodotus  depends  mainly  on  oral  testimony, 
he  is  not  unacquainted  with  the  literature  of  his  country. .  He 
not  only,  being  an  educated  man,  possesses  familiarity  with  the 
poets,  e.g.  Archilochus,^**  the  Cyclic  poems,^^  Sappho, ^2  ^schy- 
lus,i3  Hesiod,!*  Pindar, ^^  Olen,!^  Alcaeus,^^  Solon, ^^  Simon- 
ides,^^  and  Phrynichus  ;  20  but  he  has  references  to  Pythagoras,^* 
Anaxagoras,22  and  possibly  Anaximander.^^  "Whether  Hero- 
dotus  was  acquainted  with  the  logographers  is  hard  to  say, 

1  V.  59-€i. 

•  ix.  8i. 

•  ii.  i8i. 
"  ii.  156. 
»  V.  95. 
^  ii.  123. 


2  LSI. 

8  vii.  228. 

♦  viii.  83. 

«  iv.  88. 

'  i.  50-52.  25.  14- 

,0  '••  ^'^• 

»  i.  12. 

^'  ii.  S3,  n8;  iv.  32. 

^^  ii.  13s 

1*  ii.  53  ;  iv.  32. 

15  iii.  38. 

^*  iv.  35. 

18  V.  113. 

1*  V.  112 ;  vii.  228. 

•-•  vi.  4. 

22  ii.  20  seq. 

"  ii.  15. 

324  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

because  we  know  so  little  of  them.  Hellanicus  was  later  than, 
and  therefore  unknown  to  Herodotus,  as  was  Damastes,  the 
pupil  of  Hellanicus.  Bion,  Deiochus,  Hippyas,  Eugeon,  Eude- 
tnus,  Democles,  Melesagoras,  and  Xenomedes  are  mere  names  to 
us,  and  there  is  no  hint  to  be  found  anywhere  that  Herodotus 
either  used  or  knew  their  works.  The  few  fragments  that  go 
under  the  name  of  Dionysius  are  probably  spurious,  and  the 
celebrated  voyager  Scylax  probably  did  not  write  any  account 
of  his  travels,  certainly  was  not  known  as  an  author  to  Hero- 
dotus.i  What  little  we  know  about  Charon  seems  to  show  that 
Herodotus  was  unacquainted  with  his  works. ^  Xanthus  was 
said  by  the  historian  Ephorus  to  have  given  Herodotus  the 
starting-point,^  but  the  few  fragments  left  of  Xanthus  throw 
no  light  on  the  meaning  of  this  statement.  With  Cadmus, 
Acusilaus,  and  Pherecydes,  Herodotus  may  have  been  acquainted, 
but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  he  was.  With  Hecataeus  the 
case  is  different.  We  have  the  best  of  authority — that  of  Hero- 
dotus himself — for  believing  that  he  knew  the  works  of  Heca- 
taeus.  In  two  places  he  refers  to  him  by  name,  and  quotes  his 
genealogies.^  Elsewhere  he  refers,  in  all  probability,  to  him, 
but  does  not  mention  his  name;  as  when  he  ridicules  people  who 
draw  maps  of  the  world  and  put  a  mathematically  circular 
Oceanus  round  it,  without  knowing  anything  about  it ;  ^  or 
when  he  condemns  the  theory  of  the  Nile  flowing  out  of  the 
Oceanus,  as  having  no  basis  in  facts.^  Erom  these  passages  it 
seems  clear  that  Herodotus  had  only  a  poor  opinion  of  HecatfBUS. 
But  according  to  Porphyry,  Herodotus  was  indebted  to  Heca- 
tseus  for  a  good  deal  of  his  book  on  Egypt ;  and  this  leads  us  to 
the  third  point  which  we  have  to  consider  in  connection  with 
the  credibility  of  Herodotus — his  honesty. 

If  Herodotus  borrowed  without  acknowledgment  from  Heca- 
taeus,  he  was,  according  to  modern  notions,  guilty  of  literary 
dishonesty;  and  if  he  tried  to  pass  off  the  matter  thus  borrowed 
as  the  result  of  his  own  observation  or  inquiry,  he  is  an  untrust- 
worthy historian.  The  passages  specified  by  Porphyry  as  bor- 
tovied  are  those  about  the  phoenix,  the  hippopotamus,  and  the 

1  iv.  44. 

'  Had  Herodotus  read  Charon's  &poi  Aafi\f/aKr]vQp,  he  would  have  understood 
the  threat  of  Croesus  that  he  records  in  vi.  37.  Whether  Charon  wrote  about 
Sparta  is  extremely  doubtful ;  anyhow,  there  is  no  reason  to  suspect  a  covert 
reference  to  him  in  vi.  54. 

*  Ath.  xii.  515,  'JipodoTtfi  ras  a<pop(ia.i  ^ehwKbroi. 

*  vi.  137;  ii.  143.  "  iv.  36. 

*  ii.  20  seq.  To  these  may  be  added  iv.  20  (cf.  Frag.  154),  i.  201  (Fr.  i68), 
ii.  156  (Fr.  284),  ii.  15  seq.,  133;  iv.  8  ;  i.  146  ;  iv.  45  ;  in  all  of  which  pas 
■ages  Herodotus  probably  criticises  Heeatseus. 


history:    HERODOTUS.  32$ 

method  of  hunting  crocodiles.  These  passages  apparently  ^  are 
intended  by  Herodotus  to  be  regarded  as  the  result  of  his  own 
observation  and  of  his  own  inquiries  from  the  natives  ;  as,  there- 
fore, we  have  not  a  single  fragment  by  Hecataeus  bearing  on 
these  passages,  and  as  Porphyry  is  our  only  authority  ^ — and 
we  do  not  even  know  him  at  first  hand — for  tLi's  plagiarism,  it 
becomes  necessary  to  inquire  what  Porphyry  could  know  about 
it.  "We  learn  from  Eusebius  *  that  Porphyry,  in  discussing  the 
question  of  plagiarism,  accused  Herodotus,  along  with  Menander, 
Hyperides,  Ephorus,  Theopompous,  Hellanicus,  and  others,  and 
quoted  in  support  of  his  accusation  a  work  on  the  "  thefts"  of 
Herodotus  by  a  certain  Pollio.  Now  Porphyry  *  himself  is  of 
very  late  date;  he  flourished  about  a.d.  270,  and  Pollio  probably 
was  very  little  earlier  than  Porphyry.  In  the  next  place,  in 
the  time  of  Athenseus,  about  a.d.  180,  and  of  Arrian,  about 
A.D.  100,  there  were  spurious  works  in  circulation  under  the 
name  of  Hecataeus.^  Further,  we  learn  from  Athenaeus  that  iu 
the  time  of  Callimachus,  about  B.C.  250,  these  spurious  works 
were  already  in  circulation.  It  becomes  therefore  probable  that 
Pollio,  like  Arrian  and  Athenaeus,  had  the  spurious  works  of 
Hecataeus  before  him,  and  we  may  suppose  that  between  Hero- 
dotus and  the  spurious  Hecataeus  there  was  sufficient  resem- 
blance to  make  it  probable  that  the  later  author  copied  from 
his  predecessor ;  ^  but  we  have  no  ground  for  believing  that  the 
spurious  Hecataeus  is  the  earlier  author.  On  the  contrary,  it 
seems  more  probable  that  the  spurious  Hecataeus  was  partly 
made  out  of  materials  taken  from  Herodotus.  "We  may,  there- 
fore, reasonably  on  the  whole  say,  although  there  is  no  certainty 
to  be  attained  either  way.  Porphyry's  charge  of  plagiarism  rests 
on  unsatisfactory  testimony. 

The  speeches,  e.g.  those  of  Artabanus  and  Xerxes,  or  of  the 
Persian  conspirators,  are  not  historically  true ;  but  no  one  would 
think  of  accusing  Herodotus  therefore  of  dishonesty  in  inserting 
them.  It  was  natural  to  the  Greek  to  throw  into  the  lively 
form  of  dialogue  or  debate  the  considerations  which  moved^  or 

^  This  is  the  natural  inference  from  ii.  99. 

2  What  Suiilas  (s.  v.  Hecataeus)  says  comes  from  Porphjrry.  Cf  S'-jidaa 
*.  V.  ^epeKvdTjs  Bd/3i;os  and  s.  v.  <i>epe/c.  'A6T)vahs,  and  see  Rhein.  Mus  xxxiii. 
III.  What  Hermogenes  [irepl  15.  ii.  12)  says  refers  to  the  style,  .«»t  the 
matter  :   see  Hollander,  De  Hecatcei  Descriptione,  Bonn,  i86i. 

*  Prwp.  Ev.  X.  2. 

*  Porphyry  was  a  Syrian.  His  name  is  a  translation  of  the  Syrian  Mdd^ 
and  he  wns  a  pupil  of  Plotinus,  the  Neo-Platonist. 

'  Ath.  ii.  70 ;  Arrian,  Exp.  Alex.  v.  6. 

*  This  is  supported  by  the  comparison  of  Herod,  ii  77  with  Ath.  ill.  8q 
X.  447c.,  4i8£. 


326  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

were  supposed  to  have  moved,  the  agents  in  historical  events; 
and  it  Avas  as  unnecessary  for  the  historian  to  warn  his  fellow- 
Greeks  that  the  speeches  were  his  own  inferences  from  what 
facts  he  knew,  as  it  is  for  a  modern  historian  to  give  a  similar 
•warning  as  to  the  motives  which — in  the  confidence  of  know- 
ledge— he  feels  justified  in  ascribing,  though  they  are  but  infe- 
rences, to  historical  personages.  And  when  Herodotus  repeats 
with  asseveration  that  the  speech  he  ascribed  to  Otanes  was, 
■whatever  some  Greeks  might  think,  actually  delivered,  he 
means  that  the  grounds  he  has  for  inferring  the  delivery  of 
some  such  speech  were  quite  convincing  to  his  mind.  In  one 
or  two  places  in  the  book  on  Egypt,  "•  Herodotus  says  that  he 
went  to  Thebes,  and  even  as  far  as  Elephantine.  But  it  seems 
quite  clear  that  in  reality  he  never  went  to  either  place.  As, 
therefore,  in  one  passage  the  MS.  authority  for  the  statement 
in  question  is  doubtful,^  and  in  the  other  the  statement  seems 
to  have  little  connection  with  the  context ;  ^  and  as  both  state- 
ments are  in  ludicrous  contradiction  to  what  Herodotus  himself 
says,^  we  seem  justified  in  following  Professor  Sayce  in  striking 
them  out. 

To  sum  up,  then,  the  argument  for  the  credibility  of  Hero- 
dotus :  his  impartiality  and  honesty  in  the  matter  of  Greek 
history  seem  beyond  doubt.  With  regard  to  his  journeys,  a 
suspicion  has  been  cast  upon  him,  but  not  successfully,  that  he 
was  more  than  liable  to  the  infirmity  which  is  often  imputed  to 
travellers  when  telling  their  tales.  In  capacity  he  was  rather 
above  than  below  the  standard  of  his  age.  But  his  means  of 
information  were  poor.  In  the  case  of  his  Greek  history,  his 
information,  though  the  best  at  his  command,  was  only  oral 
testimony.  In  the  case  of  his  Oriental  history,  even  when  he 
met  trustworthy  informants,  as  the  priest  of  Neith  at  Sais,  or 
Zopyrus  the  son  of  Megabyzus,  he  was  entirely  at  the  mercy  of 

*  ii.  3 ;  ii.  29.  ^  ii.  29. 

*  ii.  3.  Prof.  Sayce  says  (xxvi.  n.  2):  "I  have  bracketed  the  words  it 
©i5/3as  re  Kal,  which  I  believe  to  have  been  inserted  by  a  copyist.  Heliopolis 
alone,  and  not  Thebes,  was  near  enough  for  Herodotus  to  '  turn  into,'  in 
order  to  test  what  was  told  him  at  Memphis.  His  reason  for  doing  so  was 
that  'the  people  of  Heliopolis  were  considered  the  best  authorities.'  There 
is  no  reference  to  the  Thebans." 

*  It  is  unreasonable  to  imagine  that  Herodotus  could  tell  the  absurd  story 
about  Kr6phi  and  Mophi,  and  in  almost  the  same  breath  say  that  he  had 
been  to  Elephantine.  If  Herodotus  really  went  to  Elephantine,  he  would 
have  appended  to  his  tale  about  Krfiphi  and  M6phi,  "but  I  indeed  did  not 
see  them."    If  he  was  a  liar,  he  would  have  said  he  did  see  them. 

With  regard  to  ii.  142-143,  this  being  carelessly  expressed,  would  lead  a 
eommentator  alone  to  infer  that  Herodotus  had  been  to  Thebes,  and  would 
lead  only  another  commentator  to  infer  that  Herodotus  wrote  to  deceive. 


history:  thucydides.  327 

his  iuterpreter,  and  his  Oriental  history  therefore  is  that  of  the 
dragoman,  not  of  the  monuments. 


CHAPTER  IIL 

THUCYDIDES. 

"  Thuctdidbs,  an  Athenian,  wrote  the  history  of  the  war  in 
which  the  Peloponnesians  and  the  Athenians  fought  against 
one  another.  He  began  to  write  when  they  first  took  up  arms, 
believing  that  it  would  be  great  and  memorable  above  any  pre- 
vious war.  For  he  argued  that  both  states  were  then  at  the 
full  height  of  their  military  power,  and  he  saw  the  rest  of  the 
Hellenes  either  siding  or  intending  to  side  with  one  or  other 
of  them.  No  movement  ever  stirred  HeUas  more  deeply  than 
this  ;  it  was  shared  by  many  of  the  barbarians,  and  might  be 
said  even  to  affect  the  world  at  large."  ^  These  are  the  words 
with  which  Thucydides  begins  his  history.  He  was  born  in 
the  Athenian  deme  Halimus,  belonging  to  the  tribe  Leontis,  on 
the  coast  between  Phalerum  and  Colias.  His  father,  Olorus,"-^ 
was  related,  though  in  what  degree  we  do  not  know,  to  the 
Thracian  Olorus,  whose  daughter  married  the  famous  Miltiades,^ 
and  was  mother  of  Cimon.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  war  in  B.c.  432,  when  Thucydides,  as  he  himself  says, 
began  to  write,  he  was  probably  about  forty  years  of  age.  The 
first  twenty  years  of  his  life  were  spent  under  the  administra- 
tion of  his  great  relative  Cimon,  and  the  next  twenty  under 
that  of  the  man  for  whom  Thucydides  had  such  admiration, 
Pericles.  About  Thucydides'  early  life  and  education  we  have 
no  direct  information.  We  may,  however,  fairly  assume  that 
he  met  and  learned  from  all  the  great  men  who  at  this  time 
lived  in  or  found  their  way  to  Athens.  The  philosopher  Anaxa- 
goras,  who  has  left  traces  of  his  influence  even  on  Herodotus, 
may  be  credited  with  having  contributed  to  the  formation  of 
the  mind  of  Thucydides,  whose  views  on  natural  science  and 
on  religion  are  more  closely  connected  with  those  of  Anaxa- 
goras  than  are  even  those  of  Herodotus.  The  orator  Antiphon, 
whose  style  resembles  that  of  Thucydides — both  are  classed  by 
Dionysius  as  belonging  to  the  "  severe  style  " — may  have  been 

1  Thuc.  i.  I.    Prof.  Jowett's  translation  (Clarendon  Press,  1881),  from  which 
•re  taken  all  the  translations  of  Thucydides  in  this  chapter. 
•  iv.  104.  '  Herod.  vL  39. 


32  8        HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Thucydides'  literary  model,  and  was  certainly  in  other  relations 
known  to  and  studied  by  Thucydides,  as  is  shown  by  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  speaks  of  Antiphon.^  The  sophist  Protagoras, 
Gorgias  the  rhetorician,  and  Prodicus,  have  all  left  marks  of 
their  influence  on  the  style  of  Thucydides.  At  Athens,  though 
not  at  Olympia,  he  in  all  probability,  when  about  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  heard  Herodotus  read  portions  of  his  history. 
-iEschylus  he  may  well  have  seen  ;  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Aristo- 
phanes, and  Phidias  he  must  have  met.  Poetry,  architecture, 
science,  philosophy,  and  rhetoric  all  found  in  Athens,  or  sent 
there  their  best  exponents ;  all  helped  to  shape  the  citizens  of 
Athens,  and  to  make  it  right  for  one  of  her  sons  to  say,  "  We 
are  lovers  of  the  beautiful,  yet  simple  in  our  tastes,  and  we  cul- 
tivate the  mind  without  loss  of  manliness.  Wealth  we  employ, 
not  for  talk  and  ostentation,  but  when  there  is  a  real  use  for 
it.  To  avow  poverty  with  us  is  no  disgrace ;  the  true  disgrace 
is  in  doing  nothing  to  avoid  it.  An  Athenian  citizen  does  not 
neglect  the  state  because  he  takes  care  of  his  own  household;  and 
even  those  of  us  who  are  engaged  in  business  have  a  very  fair 
idea  of  politics.  We  alone  regard  a  man  who  takes  no  interest 
in  public  affairs,  not  as  a  harmless,  but  a  useless  character ;  and 
if  few  of  us  are  originators,  we  are  all  sound  judges  of  a  policy."  ^ 
With  these  convictions  Thucydides  could  not  but  "  fix  his  eyes 
upon  the  greatness  of  Athens,  until  he  became  filled  with  the 
love  of  her,  and  impressed  with  the  spectacle  of  her  glory."  ^ 

Educated  in  this  city  and  by  these  means,  and  endowed  with 
an  originality  and  energy  of  mind  which  have  elevated  him  to 
the  level  of  the  greatest  minds  the  world  has  produced,  Thucy- 
dides began  in  B.C.  432  to  write  the  history  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war,  then  commencing.  Possessing  extensive  property  and  the 
right  of  working  gold-mines  in  Thrace,  and  being  consequently 
one  of  the  leading  men  in  Thrace, "*  Thucydides  must  have  spent 
a  certain  part  of  every  year  there.  But  the  larger  part  of  his 
time  he  passed  in  Athens.  The  speeches  of  Pericles  he  certainly 
heard  ;  his  admiration  for  Pericles'  statesmanship  is  shown  by 
what  he  says  of  it ;  ^  and  he  may  have  been  among  the  pergonal 
friends  of  Pericles.  In  B.C.  430  the  plague,  which  wrought 
great  harm  to  Athens,  nearly  depriveil  the  world  of  Thucydides' 
history.  He  was,  he  says,  himself  attacked,  and  witnessed  the 
sufferings  of  others.^  The  celebrated  deliates  on  the  fate  of  ^he 
Mitylenaeans  in  b.c.  427,  and  the  Spartan  proposals  for  peace  in 
B.C.  425,  in  consequence  of  the  affair  of  Pylos,  he  was  present 

^  Thuc.  viii.  68.  *  iL  40.  '  ii.  43. 

*  iv.  105.  •  ii  65.  *  iL  48. 


history:  thucydides.  329 

at ;  and  he  may  have  taken  part  in  some  of  the  military  opera- 
tions of  the  earlier  years  of  the  war.  At  any  rate,  in  B.C.  424 
he  acted  as  strategus,  being  one  of  the  two  Athenian  generals 
intrusted  with  the  protection  of  Thrace.^  He  allowed,  how- 
ever, the  Spartan  Brasidas  to  occupy  Amphipolis,  the  key  to 
th3  whole  of  that  country ;  the  result  of  this  serious  disaster 
being  that  Thucydides  was  an  exile  from  Athens  for  twenty 
years.  That  this  was  a  heavy  punishment  to  him  it  is  impos- 
sible to  doubt ;  but  so  far  from  its  injuring  the  prosecution  of 
his  work,  it  had  the  opposite  effect.  It  set  him  free  from  other 
claims  on  his  time  and  attention ;  his  work  probably  became  the 
Bole  palliative  to  the  exile's  grief ;  and  his  enforced  absence  from 
Athens  gave  him  the  opportunity  he  could  not  have  otherwise 
enjoyed  of  visiting  the  Peloponnese,  and  seeing  the  war  from 
both  sides.  He  says,^  "  For  twenty  years  I  was  banished  from 
my  country  after  I  held  the  command  at  Amphipolis,  and  asso- 
ciating with  both  sides,  with  the  Peloponnesians  quite  as  much 
as  the  Athenians,  because  of  my  exile,  I  was  thus  enabled  to 
watch  quietly  the  course  of  events."  He  seems  to  have  visited 
the  places  affected  by  the  war  not  only  in  Greece,  but,  as  his 
acquaintance  with  the  topography  and  early  history  of  Sicily 
shows,^  in  Sicily  and  Italy ;  and  everywhere  he  sought  out  eye- 
witnesses, "  of  whom,"  he  says,*  "  I  made  the  most  careful  and 
particular  inquiry."  At  length,  in  B.c.  404,  he  returned  after 
his  protracted  exile  to  his  country,  six  months  after  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  walls  of  Athens  by  Lysander.^  How  long  he  lived 
after  this  is  uncertain.  He  perhaps  died  before  B.c.  396,  for 
he  says,^  when  mentioning  the  eruption  of  Etna,  which  took 
place  in  B.C.  426,  that  only  three  eruptions  were  known  to  have 
taken  place  "since  the  Hellenes  first  settled  in  Sicily,"  and 
this  statement  was  not  true  after  the  eruption  of  B.O.  396.  But 
he  may  have  lived  after  B.c.  396,  and  not  revised  the  passage 
in  question.  Nor  will  a  passage,'''  in  which  he  is  supposed  to 
imply  that  Archidamas  at  the  time  of  writing  was  dead,  bear 
much  pressing.  In  fine,  we  do  not  know  when  he  died,  or 
where  or  how,  though  tradition  says  he  was  killed  by  a  robber 

*  vr.  104.  2  V.  26. 

*  \i.  2-6.  Prof.  Jowett  says  (vol.  ii.  p.  341) :  "  That  he  may  have  borrowed 
from  Antiochus  of  Syracuse  is  possible,  but  it  is  equally  possible  that  his  de- 
scription is  the  result  of  his  own  travels  or  inquiries.  The  slight  coincidences 
of  language  or  statement  which  are  found  in  the  fragments  of  Antiochus, 
when  compared  with  Thucydides,  are  by  no  means  sufficient  to  support  the 
hypothesis,  first  suggested  by  Niebuhr,  and  confidently  maintained  by  later 
writers,  that  the  account  of  Sicily  in  Thucydides  is  derived  from  his  contem* 
porary." 

*  ua2,  'i*93>  'ui<  ii6>  '  ii«  100. 


330  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

in  Thrace.  He  lived  long  enough  after  the  end  of  the  war  to 
put  into  shape  most  of  the  history  which  he  began  to  write  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  as  is  shown  by  various  passages,  such 
as  the  reference  in  the  first  book  ^  to  the  destruction  of  the 
walls  of  Athens  by  Lysander,  or  the  analysis  in  the  second 
bock  2  of  the  causes  which  led  to  the  final  defeat  of  Athens, 
passages  which  can  only  have  been  written  at  the  end  of  the 
war.  On  the  other  hand,  he  did  not  live  long  enough  to  com- 
plete his  history,  for  the  last  book  does  not  seem  to  have  received 
the  author's  final  revision,  and  instead  of  coming  down  to  the 
end  of  the  war,  brings  us  only  down  to  B.C.  411,  the  twenty- 
first  year  of  this  seven  and-twenty  years'  war. 

Thucydides  began  to  write  the  history  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war,  "  believing  that  it  would  be  great  and  memorable  above 
any  previous  war."  "  No  movement,"  he  says,  "  stirred  Hellas 
more  deeply  than  this."  The  importance  of  the  war,  long  as  it 
was,  and  great  as  the  sufferings  it  caused,  is  not  to  be  measured 
by  its  length  or  destructiveness.  It  was,  on  the  whole,  a  strug- 
gle between  the  two  great  Greek  races,  the  lonians  and  the 
Dorians,^  and  between  oligarchy  and  democracy.'*  On  the  issue 
of  the  war  it  depended  whether  Athens,  which  was  in  possession 
of  the  intellectual  supremacy  of  Greece,  was  also  to  hold  the 
political ;  or  whether  the  Spartans,  who  knew  how  to  fight  but 
not  how  to  live,  were  to  be  at  liberty  to  plant  rapacious  and 
irresponsible  oligarchies  in  the  cities  that  they  conquered. 
These  issues,  and  they  were  momentous  enough,  Thucydides 
saw ;  one  other  consequence,  and  that  an  inevitable  one,  Thucy- 
dides must  have  seen,  though  he  could  not  know  how  soon  it 

^  i.  93.  The  words  are  Kal  (jjKoSSfiTjcrat'  ry  iKetvov  yvdifi-Q  rb  irdxos  roO 
relxovs,  Sirep  vvv  In  SijXdv  icrri  irepl  rbv  Ilfipaia, — "  This  width  may  still  be 
traced  at  the  Peiraeus  "  (Jowett),  which  seems  to  imply  that  elsewhere — in 
consequence  of  the  destruction  by  Lysander — it  could  not  be  traced.  Strange 
to  say,  the  next  words  of  the  sentence,  bvo  yap  fi/xafai  ivavriai  dXXijXatt 
Toi>s  \ldov$  iTrrjyov,  are  considered  by  Prof.  Jowett,  in  his  notes,  to  be  paro- 
died in  Arist.  Birds,  1126.  If  Thucydides  is  parodied  by  Aristophanes,  thi« 
book  of  Thucydides  must  have  been  published  before  B.C.  415,  the  date  of  the 
Birds.  But  so  trivial  an  expression  contains  hardly  enough  material  for  a 
parody.  The  passage  in  the  Birds  is  also  claimed  (with  equal  reason)  as  a 
parody  of  Herodotus  i,  179,  and  the  inference  from  the  first  part  of  Thucy- 
dides' sentence  is  much  the  stronger,  and,  if  correct,  fatal  to  the  supposed 
parody. 

>  ii.  65. 

s  See  vi.  79.  6.  82^  and  for  the  exceptions  vii.  57. 

*  iii.  82.  The  Lacedsemoniaus  planted  oligarchies  amongst  their  alHeg,  L 
19,  76;  v.  81.  The  oligarchs  in  various  cities  favoured  Sparta,  the  democrats 
Athens,  iii.  47,  82;  viii.  64.  21.  Revolts  from  Athens  were  not  the  people'g 
doing,  iv.  84,  104,  106,  no  seq.,  123  ;  viii.  9,  14,  44;  iii.  27.  The  Four  Hua< 
«lnd  at  once  tried  for  peace  with  and  aubmission  to  Sparta,  viii.  70,  90,  91 


fflSTORY:    THUCYDIDES.  331 

■was  to  become  in  its  turn  a  cause  and  produce  other  conse- 
quences— the  necessary  exhaustion  of  Greece,  after  so  long  a 
struggle,  that  led  to  the  ruin  of  Greece.  Two  generations  after 
the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  Greece  lost  her  political 
liberty,  and  with  it  her  literary  genius,  for  want  of  the 
strength  which  had  been  wasted  in  the  war  of  which  Thucy- 
dides  wrote. 

If  these,  the  political,  results  were  all  that  is  to  be  learnt 
from  the  story  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  it  would  have  perhaps 
an  interest  for  the  students  of  history  only.  But  for  those  who 
view  the  history  of  Greece  from  the  standpoint  of  Athens — and 
erroneous  as,  for  the  purposes  of  history,  this  view  may  be,  it  is 
the  view  which  gratitude  for  the  art  and  literature  we  have  in- 
herited from  Athens  inclines  most  of  us  to  take — the  tale  of  this 
war  must  have,  independent  of  its  consequences,  something  of 
the  fascination  which  the  war  itself  had  for  such  an  onlooker 
as  Thucydides.  The  hopes  and  fears  with  which  such  a  specta- 
tor witnessed  the  successes  and  disasters  of  Athens  as  they  fol- 
lowed on  one  another  we  who  read  of  them  do  not  feel,  for  we 
know  from  the  beginning  the  result.  But  notwithstanding,  as 
•we  read,  our  hearts  are  stirred  by  admiration  for  the  courage 
with  which  the  Athenians  rose  above  each  new  disaster,  and  by 
regret  that  so  much  courage  should  be  doomed  only  to  aggra- 
vate their  suffering.  Still,  as  we  read  of  each  new  chance  of 
peace  offering  itself,  now  after  the  success  at  Pylos,  now  at  the 
one  year's  truce,  now  when  Cleon  and  Brasidas,  the  two  ob- 
stacles to  peace,  are  gone,  we  sigh  that  the  opportunity  should 
be  lost,  that  Athens  should  persist  in  treading  or  be  forced 
along  the  path  of  destruction.  "We  watch  her  with  a  regret 
more  intense  than  that  with  which  we  watch,  impotent  to  help 
where  we  fain  would  save,  the  errors  of  some  hero  of  fiction  or 
the  drama ;  for  this  is  truth  and  that  is  fiction ;  the  one  is  the 
story  of  a  single  imaginary  sufferer,  the  other  of  the  very  suffer- 
ings of  a  nation. 

Were  this  the  only  hold  which  the  history  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesian war  has  upon  our  interest,  it  would  be  enough  to  earn 
eager  readers  for  Thucydides  in  all  ages.  But  this  is  not  all. 
The  losses  in  wealth  and  blood,  the  material  disasters  and  the 
jjolitical  humiliation  of  Athens,  which  at  first  sight  seem  to 
make  up  the  cost  of  the  war,  though  they  constitute  claims  on 
our  sympathy  for  Athens,  are  not  the  whole  price  which  Greece 
or  Athens  paid  for  this  great  and  memorable  war,  as  they  are 
not  that  in  the  war  which  touches  us  most  deeply.  What 
touches  us  most  closely  is  not  the  sufferings — great  as  they  were 


332  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

— bravely  borne  by  the  Athenian  people,  but  Athens'  moral 
fall.  That  the  Atlienians,  who  abandoned  hearth  and  home  to 
the  Persian  invader  for  the  common  good,  whose  self-sacrificing 
devotion  to  the  national  cause  of  Hellas  put  them  far  above, 
not  merely  the  craven  Greeks  who  joined  the  Persians,  but  fat 
above  the  selfish  indifference  of  the  Peloponnesians  to  anything 
but  the  safety  of  the  Peloponnese  ;  that  the  Athenians  who 
saved  Hellas  should  have  grasped  at  empire,  should  have  become 
a  menace  to  Greece,  and  brought  about  the  war  which  two  gene- 
rations after  gave  the  independence  of  Hellas  over  into  the 
hands  of  the  Macedonian  conqueror — this  we  feel  is  "  the  pity 
of  it."  As  we  trace  in  the  pages  of  Thucydides  the  course  and 
causes  of  this  falling  off,  we  begin  to  understand  that  the  fear 
and  pity  which  it  is  the  function  of  tragedy  to  inspire  may  be 
excited  by  the  historian  as  well  as  the  poet,  by  the  actual  events 
of  history  when  told  by  a  great  historian,  as  well  as  by  the 
creations  of  a  poet's  mind.  The  story  of  ffidipus,  as  Sophocles, 
the  contemporary  of  Thucydides,  tells  it,  fills  us  with  pity  for 
the  man  "  more  sinned  against  than  sinning,"  and  with  fear  for 
ourselves  when,  seeing  how  every  step  which  CEdipus  takes  to 
avoid  the  crimes  he  is  fated  to  commit  only  leads  him  inevit- 
ably to  commit  them,  we  become  possessed  with  a  sense  of  the 
ruthless  power  of  Heaven,  and  the  fearful  catastrophes  to  which 
the  slightest  deviations  from  the  paths  of  righteousness  may 
lead.  The  same  sentiments  are  aroused  by  the  history  of  the 
Peloponnesian  war  as  Thucydides  tells  it.  It  was  her  very 
patriotism  and  self-sacrifice  which  led  to  the  moral  fall  of 
Athens.  Not  only  of  our  vices,  but  of  our  virtues  do  the  gods 
make  whips  to  scourge  us.  The  services  of  Athens  to  the 
national  cause  made  the  Greeks  look  up  to  her  as  their  leader; 
fche  was  placed  by  them  at  the  head  of  the  confederacy  of  Delos ; 
her  energy  in  prosecuting  the  war,  and  the  indolence  of  the 
allies  who  allowed  her  to  do  the  fighting  against  the  Persians, 
converted  her  leadership  practically  into  empire. ^  "  That  em- 
pire," as  the  Athenians  said  to  the  Lacedaemonians  in  B.C.  432, 
shortly  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  "  was  not  acquired  by 
force  ;  but  you  (the  Lacedaemonians)  would  not  stay  and  make 
an  end  of  the  barbarians,  and  the  allies  came  of  their  own  accord 
and  asked  us  to  be  their  leaders.  The  subsequent  development 
of  our  power  was  originally  forced  upon  us  by  circumstances."  * 
And  the  Athenians  go  on  to  say,  "An  empire  was  sffered  to  us ; 
can  you  wonder  that,  acting  as  human  nature  always  will, 
we  accepted  it,  and  refused  to  give  it  up  again?"  ^  The  excust 
1  L  96-100.  •  i.  75.  '  i.  76. 


HISTORK  :    THUCYDIDES.  333 

may  be  accepted,  but  excuses,  even  wlien  accepted,  cannot  pre- 
vent our  actions  from  producing  their  conseqiiences ;  and  the 
consequence  of  the  Athenian  acceptance  of  empire  was  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  war.  Thucydides  says,^  "  The  real  though  unavowed 
cause  [of  the  war]  I  believe  to  have  been  the  growth  of  the 
Athenian  power,  which  terrified  the  Lacedcemonians  and  forced 
them  into  war."  The  war  once  begun,  the  next  result  of 
empire  was  the  impossibility  of  withdrawing  from  the  Mar. 
When  the  Athenians,  overwhelmed  by  the  unexpected  disastei 
of  the  plague,  were  inclined  to  peace,  Pericles  put  before  them, 
in  RC.  430,  the  simple  truth,  which  admitted  of  no  reply :  ^ 
"  Once  more,  you  are  bound  to  maintain  the  imperial  dignity  of 
your  city,  in  which  you  all  take  pride,  for  you  should  not  covet 
the  glory  unless  you  will  endure  the  toil.  And  do  not  imagine 
that  you  are  fighting  about  a  simple  issue,  freedom  or  slavery  ; 
you  have  an  empire  to  lose,  and  there  is  the  danger  to  which 
the  hatred  of  your  imperial  rule  has  exposed  you.  JSTeither  can 
you  resign  your  power,  if,  at  this  crisis,  any  timorous  or  inactive 
spirit  is  for  thus  playing  the  honest  man.  For  by  this  time  your 
empire  has  become  a  tyranny  which,  in  the  opinion  of  mankind, 
may  have  been  unjustly  gained,  but  which  cannot  be  safely 
surrendered.  The  men  of  whom  I  was  speaking,  if  they  could 
find  followers,  would  soon  ruin  a  city,  and  if  they  were  to  go 
and  found  a  state  of  their  own,  would  equally  ruin  that."  The 
principle  which  Pericles  thus  laid  down,  Cleon,  in  B.C.  427, 
proceeded  to  put  into  application.  The  Mitylenseans,  who  had 
originally  joined  the  confederacy  of  Delos,  and  now  found  them- 
selves belonging  i-o  the  Athenian  empire,  withdrew.  They  were, 
however,  attackea  as  rebels,  and  conquered  by  the  Athenians ; 
and  the  Athenians  decreed  that  every  man  in  Mitylene  should 
be  killed  and  the  women  and  children  enslaved.  As  Cleon  said 
to  the  Athenians,^  "  If  they  were  right  in  revolting,  you  must  be 
wrong  in  maintaining  your  empire.  But  if,  right  or  wrong,  you  are 
resolved  to  rule,  then  rightly  or  wrongly  they  must  be  chastised 
for  your  good.  Otherwise,  you  must  give  up  j'our  empire,  and, 
when  virtue  is  no  longer  dangerous,  you  may  be  as  virtuous  as 
you  please."  The  same  year  as  that  in  which  the  Mitylenaeans 
suflFered  was  to  show  that  the  consequences  of  our  actions  can- 
not be  limited  to  ourselves,  and  that  the  innocent  pay  the 
penalty  as  well  as  the  authors  of  a  misdeed ;  for  in  this  year 
the  Plataeans,  who  had  stood  a  rigorous  siege  with  remarkable 
bravery,  succumbed,  and  thus  the  war  brought  it  about  that  the 
Spartans,  who  had  defeated  the  Persians  at  Plataea  with  the  aid 
1  i.  23,  ^  iL  63.  ^  iii.  40. 


334  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

of  the  Platseans,  were  about  to  slaughter  the  Platseans,  and  raze 
to  the  ground  their  city,  memorable  for  the  defeat  of  the  com- 
mon foe  of  Hellas.  The  pity  of  it  is  summed  up  in  one  sen* 
tence  of  the  Platseans'  appeal  to  the  Spartans.^  "  The  Plataeans, 
who  were  zealous  in  tbe  cause  of  Hellas  even  beyond  their 
strength,  are  now  friendless,  spurned,  and  rejected  by  alh 
None  of  our  old  allies  will  help  us,  and  we  fear  that  yo^,  O 
Lacedaemonians,  our  only  hope,  are  not  to  be  depended  upon." 
The  imperial  position  of  Athens,  which  in  this  year  necessitated 
the  slaughter  of  a  thousand  Mitylenaeans,  whose  offence  was 
struggling  for  their  freedom,  produced  more  fruit  eleven  years 
later  ;  for  as  the  necessities  of  empire  made  it  impossible  for 
Athens  to  retire,  so  they  offered  her  every  inducement  to  ad- 
vance. "  The  Melians,"  says  Thucydides,^  *'  were  colonists  of 
the  Lacedaemonians,  who  would  not  submit  to  Athens  like  the 
other  islanders.  At  first  they  were  neutral,  and  would  take  no 
part ;  but  when  the  Athenians  tried  to  coerce  them  by  ravaging 
their  lands,  they  were  driven  into  open  hostilities."  The  Melians, 
therefore,  being  weak,  were  to  be  crushed,  and  the  conscience  of 
Athens,  having  adapted  itself  to  its  imperial  position,  felt  no 
need  of  excuses.  "  We  Athenians,"  said  they  3  to  the  Melians, 
"  will  use  no  fine  words  ;  we  Avill  not  go  out  of  our  way  to 
prove  at  length  that  we  have  a  right  to  rule  because  we  over- 
threw the  Persian,  or  that  we  attack  you  now  because  we  are 
suffering  any  injury  at  your  hands.  We  should  not  convince 
you  if  we  did.  .  .  .  You  and  we  should  say  what  we  really 
think,  and  aim  only  at  what  is  possible,  for  we  both  alike  know 
that  into  the  discussion  of  human  affairs  the  question  of  justice 
only  enters  where  the  pressure  of  necessity  is  equal,  and  that 
the  powerful  exact  what  they  can,  and  the  weak  grant  what 
they  must."  Melos  was  annexed,  and  Athens  continued  to 
advance,  whereby  she  not  merely  left  the  question  of  justice 
behind,  but  also  neglected  the  advice  which  Pericles  had  given 
her  twenty  years  before,  "  Not  to  seek  to  enlarge  her  dominion 
while  the  war  was  going  on."*  Sicily  was  next  attacked. 
"  They  virtuously  professed  that  they  were  going  to  assist  their 
own  kinsmen  and  their  newly-acquired  allies,  but  the  simplo 
truth  was  that  they  aspired  to  the  empire  of  Sicily,"  says 
Thucydides,^  an  Athenian.  The  Sicilian  expedition  failed 
disastrously,  and  contributed  more  than  any  other  error  on  the 
part  of  Athens  to  her  fall.  And  it,  too,  was  recommended 
by  arguments  drawn  from  the  imperial  position  of  Athens. 
"  We  cannot,"  said  Alcibiades,^  "  cut  down  an  empire  as  we 
^  iiL  54.  *  V.  84,  *  V.  89.  «  i.  65.         ^  vi  5.  *  vi  ?i 


history:  thucydides.  335 

might  a  household ;  but  having  once  gained  our  present  posi- 
tion, we  must  keep  a  firm  hold  upon  some,  and  contrive 
occasion  against  others ;  for  if  we  are  not  rulers,  we  shall  be 
subjects.' 

It  is  this  tale  told  in  detail,  with  no  striving  after  effect,  but 
with  a  calm  and  cold  veracity  which  imprints  the  story  with 
painful  distinctness  on  the  imagination  and  the  mind,  that 
makes  Thucydides  as  interesting  as  Sophocles,  and  the  fate  of 
Athens  a  moral  study  as  absorbing  as  that  of  ffidipus.  One 
difference,  however,  will  strike  those  who  read  both  authors. 
Destiny,  which  is  the  eventual  source  of  all  OEdipus'  actions, 
plays  no  part  in  Thucydides.  How  universally  useful  destiny 
might  be  to  the  historian,  Herodotus  had  already  shown.  It 
was  a  key  to  which  no  lock  could  fail  to  open.  If  a  storm 
wrecked  Persian  ships,  this  was  "  in  order  that "  the  Persian 
fleet  might  not  be  larger  than  the  Greek  fleet.  If  Xerxes  made 
a  mistake  in  his  campaign,  this  was  because  destiny  had  de- 
creed his  defeat.  But  this  crude  use  of  destiny  could  have  as 
little  attraction  for  Thucydides  when  applied  to  the  solution  of 
historical  problems,  as  for  Sophocles  when  applied  to  moral  pro- 
blems. Sophocles  uses  it  more  sparingly  and  more  effectively. 
As  far  as  ffidipus  is  concerned,  fate  only  interposes  directly 
once  :  in  the  oracle  warning  him  of  the  crimes  he  will  com- 
mit— and  granted  but  this  one  interposition,  all  the  actions  of 
Q^ldipus  flow  naturally  and  inevitably.  But  Thucydides  knows 
not  even  this  refined  form  of  destiny.  To  Thucydides,  a  man's 
own  actions  are  his  fate  ;  they  are  a  man's  destiny,  which 
decrees  what  he  shall  do  and  what  he  shall  be.  The  absence 
of  any  other  kind  of  destiny  from  the  history  of  Thucydides 
does  not  prove  that  Thucydides  had  no  belief  in  destiny.  Its 
absence  is  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  its  being  no  part  of 
Thucydides'  design  to  entertain  theological  considerations.  His 
object  was  to  set  down  only  facts,  which  admit  of  closer  proof 
than  destiny  is  susceptible  of.  It  will  help  to  the  understand- 
ing of  this  and  other  points  to  read  his  own  words  : — 

"Of  the  events  of  the  war  I  have  not  ventured  to  speak  from 
any  chance  information,  nor  according  to  any  notion  of  my  own  j 
I  have  described  nothing  but  what  I  either  saw  myself  or  learnt 
from  others,  of  whom  I  made  the  most  careful  and  particular  in- 
quiry. The  task  was  a  laborious  one,  because  eye-witnesses  of 
the  same  occurrences  gave  different  accounts  of  them,  as  they 
remembered  or  were  interested  in  the  actions  of  one  side  or  the 
other.  And  yery  likely  the  strictly  historical  character  of  my 
narrative  may  be  disappointing  to  the  ear.     But  if  he  who  de« 


336  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

sires  to  have  before  his  eyes  a  true  picture  of  the  events  which 
have  happened,  and  of  the  like  events  which  may  be  expected 
to  happen  hereafter  in  the  order  of  human  things,  shall  pro- 
nounce what  I  have  written  to  be  useful,  then  I  shall  be  satis- 
fied. My  history  is  an  everlasting  possession,  not  a  prize  com- 
position which  is  heard  and  forgotten."  ^ 

The  object  of  Thucydides,  then,  was  to  give  a  strict  and 
faithful  account  of  facts.  He  had  no  preconceived  theory  to 
prove,  no  "  notion  of  his  own  "  which  his  history  was  to  estab- 
lish. The  actual  facts,  free  from  the  distortions  of  inaccurate 
memories  or  of  prejudiced  eyes,  once  established,  his  history 
would  be  an  everlasting  possession  for  the  guidance  of  future 
generations.  To  the  actual  facts,  then,  he  confines  himself, 
without  moralising  and  without  theorising.  For  instance,  in 
his  great  description  of  the  plague  he  says :  ^  "  No  human  art 
was  of  any  avail,  and  as  to  supplications  in  temples,  inquiries  of 
oracles,  and  the  like,  they  were  utterly  useless,  and  at  last  men 
were  overpowered  by  the  calamity  and  gave  them  all  up." 
"What  he  himself  thinks  on  the  objective  utility  of  prayer  he 
does  not  say  ;  he  simply  notes  the  fact  that  in  this  case  suppli- 
cations were  useless,  with  the  same  abstention  from  theorising 
as  he  notes,  in  the  next  chapter,  that  the  disease  after  attacking 
the  throat  moved  down  to  the  chest.  Moral  disorders  he  treats 
in  the  same  positive  way  as  he  describes  the  plague  ;  he  notes 
that  a  symptom  of  extreme  demoralisation  is  disregard  of  law, 
human  and  divine.  In  the  same  way  he  records  ^  both  that 
Erasidas  thought  that  he  captured  Lecythus  by  suy,^rnatural 
aid,  and  that  when  Lecythus  was  attacked  the  walls  happened 
to  be  accidentally  deserted.  So,  too,  he  notes  *  that  the  Spartans 
celebrated  their  religious  festivals  regardless  of  the  military 
situation,  and  that  their  enemies  profited  by  the  fact.  The 
Lacedsemonians,  in  accordance  with  their  tradition,  consulted 
oracles,  but  did  not  guide  their  policy  by  them — e.g.  they  con- 
sulted Delplii  at  the  beginning  of  the  Avar  as  to  whether  they 
should  declare  war  or  not,^  but  they  left  the  decision  to  the 
general  meeting  of  their  allies  ;  and  the  Corinthians  used  the 
oracle  to  silence  scruples  as  to  the  justice  of  the  war,^  but  trusted 
to  grounds  of  policy  as  the  means  of  convincing  their  hearers.'' 
The  Spartans  also  employed  the  imputed  "pollution"  of  Pericles, 
not  from  religious  motives,  but  for  purposes  of  policy  ;^  as  they 
and  other  Greeks  regularly  appealed  to  the  gods  rather  from 
wont  than  conviction.^     Amongst  the  Athenians  the  religion  of 

*  i  22.        '  ii.  47.        *  iv.  115,  116.        *  V,  54,  82.        »  i.  118. 

•  L  123.      '  L  lao.       •  i.  126.  •  i.  78  ;  ii.  71,  74;  iii  14;  It.  ^ 


history:  thucydides.  337 

their  forefathers  was  held  in  no  better  esteem.  They  purified 
Belosi  conventionally.  The  celebrated  affair  of  the  Hermsa 
was  a  religious  offence,  but  was  converted  into  political  capital. 
Even  for  their  unjustifiable  attack  on  the  Melians,  the  Athenians 
count  on  the  approval  of  the  gods.  And  Thucydides  recounts 
all  these  things  with  no  comment  and  no  expression  of  his  own 
opinion :  he  gives  the  facts.  With  regard  to  oracles  and  por- 
tents he  is  equally  reserved.  He  observes  ^  that  in  times  of  ex- 
citement everything  of  the  nature  of  a  portent  is  curiously  noted;' 
and  he  records  that  after  the  failure  of  the  Sicilian  expedition 
the  Athenians  were  furious  "  with  the  soothsayers  and  prophets, 
and  all  who  by  the  influence  of  religion  had  at  the  time 
inspired  them  with  the  belief  that  they  would  conquer  Sicily." 
He  is  aware  that  ambiguity  is  of  much  virtue  in  an  oracle  : 
he  says  *  of  the  Athenians  during  the  plague,  "  In  their 
troubles  they  naturally  called  to  mind  a  verse  which  the  elder 
men  among  them  declared  to  have  been  current  long  ago  : — 
*  A  Dorian  war  will  come  and  a  plague  with  it.'  There  was 
a  dispute  about  the  precise  expression ;  some  saying  that  Umos, 
a  famine,  and  not  loimos,  a  plague,  was  the  original  word. 
Nevertheless,  as  might  have  been  expected — for  men's  memories 
reflected  their  sufferings — the  argument  in  favour  of  loimos  pre- 
vailed at  the  time.  But  if  ever  in  future  years  another  Dorian 
war  arises  which  happens  to  be  accompanied  by  a  famine,  they 
will  probably  repeat  the  verse  in  the  other  form."  The  vague- 
ness of  another  oracle — "  Better  the  Pelasgian  ground  left 
waste  " — allows  him  to  say  for  it,^  "  The  oracle,  without  men- 
tioning the  war,  foresaw  that  the  place  would  be  inhabited  some 
day  for  no  good."  Though  whether  the  foresight  of  the  oracle 
is  to  be  regarded  as  human  or  divine,  he  does  not  say.  "When 
an  oracle  is  fulfilled  he  notes  the  fact ;  in  estimating  the  length 
of  the  war  he  says,*  "  He  who  reckons  up  the  actual  periods  of 
time  will  find  that  I  have  rightly  given  the  exact  number  of 
years.  He  will  also  find  that  this  was  the  solitary  instance  in 
which  those  who  put  their  faith  in  oracles  were  justified  by  the 
event.  For  I  well  remember  how,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  the  war,  there  was  a  common  and  often-repeated  saying 
that  it  was  to  last  thrice  nine  years.  I  lived  through  the  whole 
of  it,  and  was  of  mature  years  and  judgment,  and  I  took  great 
pains  to  make  out  the  exact  truth."  This  being  so,  the  Athe- 
nians had  grounds,  therefore,  it  would  seem — whether  the  fuJfil. 
ment   of  this  solitary  oracle   was  supernatural  or  casual — for 

^  iii.  104.  2  ii,  8,  3  yjii,  i_ 

*  ii.  54.  '  u.  17.  'v.  26. 

T 


338  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

advising  the  Melians  not  to  have  recourse  "  to  i)rophecies  and 
oracles  and  the  like,  which  ruin  men  by  the  hopes  which  they 
inspire  in  them."  ^ 

In  the  same  way  as  he  thus  prefers  to  record  historical  facta 
without  having  recourse  to  any  theory,  whether  of  destiny  cr 
divine  intervention,  he  records  such  natural  phenomena  as  were 
considered  portentous,  and  what  was  known  about  them.  Thus 
he  duly  narrates  ^  how  when  the  Athenians  were  about  to  leave 
Sicily,  the  occurrence  of  an  eclipse  of  the  moon  terrified  them 
into  delaying  their  departure,  and  thus  brought  about  the  de- 
struction of  them  all  But  he  also  notes  elsewhere,^  with  regard 
to  solar  eclipses,  that  it  is  apparently  only  at  the  beginning  of 
the  lunar  month  that  they  are  possible.  In  one  place  *  he 
observes  that  during  a  battle  in  Sicily,  "  as  is  often  the  case  in 
the  fall  of  the  year,  there  came  on  a  storm  of  rain  and  thunder, 
whereby  the  Athenians  were  yet  more  disheartened,  for  they 
thought  that  everything  was  conspiring  to  their  destruction." 
Of  another  engagement  he  says,^  "  During  the  battle  there 
came  on  thunder  and  lightning  and  a  deluge  of  rain  ;  these 
added  to  the  terror  of  the  inexperienced  who  were  fighting  for 
the  first  time,  but  experienced  soldiers  ascribed  the  storm  to  the 
time  of  the  year,  and  were  much  more  alarmed  at  the  stubborn 
resistance  of  the  enemy."  The  plague  was  considered  by  many 
people  to  be  a  fulfilment  of  the  promise  of  Apollo  to  assist  the 
Spartans.  Thucydides  says,^  "The  disease  certainly  did  set 
in  immediately  after  the  invasion  of  the  Peloponnesians,  and  did 
not  spread  into  the  Peloponnesus  in  any  degree  worth  speaking 
of,  while  Athens  felt  its  ravages  most  severely,  and  next  to 
Athens  the  places  which  were  most  populous."  But  he  had  a 
few  chapters  before'^  said,  "The  disease  is  said  to  have  begun 
south  of  Egypt  in  .Ethiopia ;  thence  it  descended  into  Egypt 
and  Libya,  and  after  spreading  over  the  greater  part  of  the 
Persian  empire,  suddenly  fell  upon  Athens."  He  records  all 
the  facts,  but  does  not  express  "  any  notion  of  his  own." 

The  determined  resolution  of  Thucydides  to  adhere  to  the 
facts  of  the  war  has  materially  influenced  the  form  of  his  work. 
Having  no  preconceived  theory  of  his  own,  no  philosophy  of 
history  from  which  to  deduce  the  facts  of  the  war  a  priori^ 
Thucydides  follows,  not  a  logical,  but  a  strictly  chronological 
order.  The  events  of  each  year  are  ranged  under  that  year. 
The  story  of  a  siege,  for  instance,  such  as  that  of  Platsea,  which 
lasted  three  years,  is  not  told  in  one  continuous  section,  but 

T.  loo.  s  yfi.  50.  3  ii.  28.  *  viL  79. 

•  vi  70.  6  ii.  54.  '  ii.  48, 


history:  thucydides.  339 

what  happened  in  each  year  is  told  under  the  head  of  that  year, 
and  thus  the  story  of  the  siege  is  twice  dropped  and  twice 
picked  up  again.  The  adoption  of  this  annalistic  method  by 
Thucydides  is  the  more  noteworthy  because  there  were  no 
annalists  in  Greece.  The  materials  out  of  which  annals  sprang 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  lists  of  magistrates,  festivals,  &c.,  and 
family  records,  existed  in  Greece ;  but  before  annals  could  be 
developed  out  of  them,  Thucydides  produced  history.  To  us 
this  chronological  method  of  Thucydides  seems,  as  it  is,  some- 
what clumsy.  It  fetters  the  historian  without  apparently  afford- 
ing any  compensation.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  the 
time  of  Thucydides  there  was  no  uniform  system  of  chronology 
current  throughout  Greece.  Later,  the  metliod  of  reckoning 
years  by  Olympiads,  i.e.  by  the  recurrence  of  the  Olympic  games 
every  four  years,  was  universally  adopted  by  the  Greeks.  But 
in  the  time  of  Thucydides  each  state  had  its  own  mode  of  reck- 
oning, and  commenced  its  civil  year,  not  on  the  same  day  as  any 
other  state,  but  when  its  own  chief  magistrate  entered  on  office, 
or  on  some  other  such  principle.  This  latter  difficulty  Thucy- 
dides evaded  by  disregarding  the  civil  year  and  following  the 
natural  year,  which  he  divides  into  summer  and  winter.  This 
procedure  had  this  advantage,  that  it  suited  admirably  a  record 
of  military  operations,  which,  in  the  case  of  the  Greeks,  ceased 
in  the  winter  and  were  carried  on  only  in  the  summer.  The 
other  difficulty  which  arose  in  the  absence  of  a  uniform  chrono- 
logy, that  of  specifying  the  year,  Thucydides  got  over  as  best 
he  could  by  counting  from  the  date  of  some  well-known  event, 
and  by  reference  to  the  chronological  system  of  various  states. 
This,  for  instance,  is  his  way  of  specifying  the  year  in  which  the 
Peloponnesian  war  began  :  ^  "  For  fourteen  years  the  thirty 
years'  peace  which  was  concluded  after  the  recovery  of  Euboea 
remained  unbroken ;  but  in  the  fifteenth  year,  when  Chrysis 
the  high-priestess  of  Argos  was  in  the  forty-eighth  year  of  her 
priesthood,  ^nesias  being  the  Ephor  at  Sparta,  and  at  Athens 
Pythodorus  having  two  months  of  his  archonship  to  run,  in  the 
sixth  month  after  the  engagement  at  Potidaea,  and  at  the  begin- 
ning of  spring,"  &c.  "We,  with  our  fixed  system  of  chronology, 
say  "  in  B.C.  431."  Modern  historians,  who  can  specify  the  date 
of  an  event  with  three  strokes  of  the  pen,  may  arrange  events 
in  any  order  they  think  most  lucid ;  but  Thucydides,  having 
once  specified  his  year,  had  good  reason  for  adhering  to  the 
chroiological  order  of  events.     The  annalistic  method  might 


340  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

fetter  the  historian,  but  it  secured  his  chronology,  which  other 
wise  might  have  fluctuated. 

Beyond  this  division  into  summers,  winters,  and  years,  no 
other  seems  to  have  been  designed  by  Thucydides.  The  divi- 
sion into  eight  books,  as  we  have  his  work,  though  made  early,^ 
was  not  made  by  Thucydides.  There  are  traces  in  the  scholiasta 
of  a  division  into  thirteen  books,^  and  Diodorus  mentions  a 
division  into  nine  books.^  But  these  divisions  are  probably 
later  even  tlian  the  one  we  have.  Thucydides,  however,  does 
sometimes  speak  of  *'  the  first  war  "  or  "  the  ten  years'  war,"  and 
of  "the  Sicilian  war,"  and  the  "Ionic  war;"*  and  so  it  has 
been  conjectured  that  he  intended  a  division  into  five  parts — the 
introduction,^  the  ten  years'  war,^  the  period  before  the  Sicilian 
expedition,^  the  Sicilian  war,^  and  the  Ionic  war.^  But  the 
narrative  flows  on  without  regard  to  the  subdivisions ;  ^*^  the 
references  which  Thucydides  makes  to  them  are  few,  and  they 
exercise  no  influence  on  the  form  or  matter  of  his  work.  In- 
deed, he  seems  to  have  neglected  any  attempt  to  break  up  his 
work  into  sections  possessing  balance,  symmetry,  proportion,  or 
form,  with  as  much  contempt  as  he  disclaims  any  design  of 
making  his  history  pleasing  to  the  ear.  The  division  into  years 
is  "  strictly  historical."  Nothing  more  is  aimed  at.  At  any 
rate,  the  notion  that  Thucydides'  history  is  composed  on  the 
analogy  of  a  drama,  and  is  arranged  in  a  prologue  and  five  acts, 
is  purely  fanciful,  and  as  grotesquely  incongruous  with  Thucy- 
dides' conception  of  the  functions  of  the  historian  as  any  piece 
of  "  subjectivity  "  could  be.  Of  all  manifestations  of  power, 
self-restraint  impresses  men  most,  partly  because  it  is  the  form 
which  power  least  often  takes ;  and  there  is  scarcely  a  page  of 
Thucydides  that  does  not  exemplify  his  strength  in  this  respect. 
Where  strong  expression  seems  justifiable,  where  even  it  seems 
demanded,  Thucydides  contents  himself  with  a  sober  statement. 
Events  which  call  aloud  for  some  expression  of  pity  or  of  horror 
he  leaves  to  speak  for  themselves,  without  a  word  from  him. 
Where  the  temptation  to  any  other  writer  to  comment  or  to 
moralise  would  be  irresistible,  Thucydides  resists  it.     He  places 

'  It  was  known  to  Dionysius  (p.  867)  and  the  early  grammarians. 

*  Schol.  ii.  78 ;  iv.  78,  114. 

*  xii.  502  ;  xiii.  573.  But  possibly  our  eight  books  are  here  referred  to — 
the  ninth  being  the  first  two  books  of  the  Hellenica,  which  continue  the 
Btory  of  the  war  from  where  Thucydides  breaks  off  to  the  end,  and  were 
■ometimes  ascribed  to  Thucydides. 

4  V.  20,  24,  25,  26 ;  iv.  81 ;  vii.  18,  28,  85 ,  viii.  11. 

*  i.  1-146.  8  ii.  i-v.  24.  '  V.  25-v.  116. 

*  Ti.  i-vii.  87.  »  viii.  i  ad  fin.  ">  Except  at  v.  afi. 


HISTORY:    THUCYDIDES.  341 

before  the  reader  the  agonies  of  a  nation,  as  in  his  accovmt  of 
the  Sicilian  expedition,  or  the  presence  of  death,  as  in  his 
description  of  the  plague,  with  grave  silence. 

Problems  of  political  morality,  which  he  had  studied  for 
years  and  in  which  his  keen  intellect  took  the  profoundest 
interest,  he  states  so  far  as  they  were  debated  or  exemplified  in 
tho  war  ;  but  he  is  not  betrayed  into  speculation  ;  he  confines 
himself  to  facts.  On  the  great  problems  of  life  it  is  sometimes 
said  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  hold  his  judgment  in 
perpetual  suspense  ;  but  Thucydides  seems  to  have  had  them 
perpetually  present  to  his  mind,  and  to  have  perpetually  regarded 
the  material  before  him  as  inadequate  for  the  formation  of  a 
decision.  It  is  this  habit  of  never  going  beyond  his  facts,  of 
never  losing  sight  of  his  purpose  to  ascertain  and  record  facts, 
this  self-restraint  which  never  relaxes,  that  makes  the  reader 
respect  and  marvel  at  the  power  of  Thucydides.  It  creates 
absolute  confidence  in  him,  in  his  will  and  his  power  to  record 
the  plain  truth.  It  makes  his  very  silence  eloquent,  and  his 
least  word  weighty  beyond  the  superlatives,  the  exclamations,  or 
asseverations  of  other  writers.  This,  however,  is  only  the  nega- 
tive side  of  his  power.  His  silent  self-restraint  prepares  us  to 
be  impressed  by  his  words,  but  his  words  also  impress  us.  His 
facts  are  more  valuable  than  others'  comments,  and  for  this 
there  is  a  reason.  In  Thucydides'  history  we  have  the  facts  of 
the  war  as  Thucydides  saw  them  ;  and  the  difference  between 
his  work  and  that,  say,  of  Xenophon,  who  continued  Thucy- 
dides' incomplete  work,  is  much  the  same  as  that  between  what 
a  geologist  and  a  navvy  see  in  a  railway  cutting,  or  a  botanist  and 
a  ploughboy  see  in  a  hedge-bottom,  or  between  what  Shelley 
and  a  farm-labourer  hear  in  a  skylark's  song.  That  is  to  say, 
Thucydides  had  a  knowledge  of  what  happened  in  the  war  com- 
parable to  the  geologist's  or  botanist's  knowledge  of  his  science, 
and  he  further  had,  like  Shelley,  the  genius  to  transmute  what 
he  heard  into  words  more  precious  than  gold.  Beyond  this,  in 
the  way  of  analysis,  it  is  not  possible  to  go  far.  The  intimate 
acquaintance  which  he  gives  us  with  the  Peloponnesian  war  ia 
p.-oof  of  the  clearness  and  grasp  with  which  he  realised  all  the 
details  and  the  whole  significance  of  the  war ;  but  to  ask  how 
this  clear  sight  was  acquired  or  conveyed  is  folly.  It  is  better 
to  try  and  profit  by  than  spy  into  genius. 

The  genius  of  Thucydides  is  seen  in  the  way  in  which  he  not 
only  conveys  to  the  reader  his  own  clear  perception  of  the  facta 
and  the  course  of  the  war,  but  also  arouses  in  the  reader  the 
emotions  with  which  he  himself  followed  the  various  incidents 


342  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

of  the  struggle.  In  otlier  words,  Thucydides'  literary  genius  is 
as  great  as  his  historical  genius.  Over  the  literary  as  well  as 
the  historical  difficulties  involved  by  his  chronological  method 
of  relating  facts  he  rides  triumphant.  It  is  said  that  his  work 
is  without  a  plan,  and  this  is  true  ;  there  is  no  more  plot  or 
plan  in  his  annals  than  there  would  be  in  a  diary  of  the  wir. 
But  this  defect  is  rather  apparent  than  real.  Every  incidt.nt 
is  viewed  by  Thucydides  in  the  light  thrown  on  it  by  the 
"whole  war,  and  thus  its  importance  and  position  is  assigned  to 
it  as  unerringly  and  as  clearly  as  though  all  the  other  events 
narrated  by  Thucydides  had  been  grouped  with  the  purpose  of 
giving  this  one  incident  its  proper  literary  value.  But  although 
Thucydides  disdains  to  strive  after  the  external  balance  and 
harmony  which  he  might  have  obtained  by  articulating  his  his- 
tory, and  by  grouping  his  facts  so  as  to  reach  the  consum- 
mation of  a  culmination,  still  this  is,  from  a  literary  point  of 
view,  even  more  than  compensated  for  by  the  internal  proportions 
of  his  work,  in  virtue  of  which  each  incident  receives  its  proper 
amount  of  attention  and  receives  light  from  and  throws  light 
on  every  other  incident  and  the  whole  course  of  the  war.  But 
although  everything  which  belongs  to  the  narrative  of  the  war 
fits  in  with  the  narrative  harmoniousl}'-,  there  are  various  digres- 
sions having  nothing  to  do  with  the  war,  e.g.  that  about  Har- 
modius  and  Aristogiton,  wliich,  however  valuable  in  themselves, 
absolutely  spoil  the  form  of  the  work,  as  they  also  constitute  an 
undeniable  exception  to  the  strictness  with  which  Thucydides 
otherwise  excludes  all  matter  which  does  not  bear  directly  on 
his  subject.  Whether  this  is  due  to  simple  neglect,  or  to  abso- 
lute contempt  for  literary  form,  may  be  doubted.  Errors  of 
taste  are  to  be  found  in  Thucydides — they  occur  precisely  when, 
abandoning  his  general  principle,  he  strives  after  effect — and 
these  digressions  may  have  been  inserted  by  him  under  the 
impression  that  a  history  to  possess  literary  form  must  have 
episodes,  since  they  were  to  be  found  in  Herodotus  and  the 
logographers.  At  the  same  time,  though  his  annalistic  method 
involves  literary  disadvantages,  it  also  brings  with  it  some  com 
pensating  advantages.  The  system  of  dropping  one  thread  ol 
the  narrative  when  the  end  of  a  year  is  reached,  and  then  tak- 
ing up  the  narrative  of  the  other  events  of  the  year,  though  it 
sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Sicilian  expedition,  interrupts 
with  foreign  matter  the  main  narrative,  yet  elsewhere  and  more 
generally  affords  a  welcome  relief,  and  a  variety  such  as  is 
attained  in  a  drama  by  means  of  a  secondary  plot. 

But  it  is  in  the  matter,  not  in  the  manner,  of  his  work  that 


history:  thucydides.  343 

Thucydides'  literary  greatness  makes  itself  most  felt.  And  here 
it  is  difficult  to  determine  what  department  and  what  quality 
in  his  work  claims  our  greatest  adtuiration.  For  the  political 
philosopher  of  all  ages,  and  for  the  student  of  Greek  thought,  tho 
speeches  will  ever  rank  as  the  greatest  work  of  "  the  greatest 
historian  that  ever  lived."  ^  And  it  is  a  pardonable  error  if,  in 
the  luminous  profundity  of  the  thought  contained  in  them,  wp 
lose  sight  of  "  the  antitheses,  the  climaxes,  the  plays  of  words, 
the  point  which  is  no  point,"  ^  that  mar  the  speeches  as  litera- 
ture. It  is  rather  to  the  narrative  that  we  must  look  for  th« 
literary  perfection  of  Thucydides ;  and  there  we  must  turn,  not 
to  the  philosophical  disquisition — great  and  justly  famous  as  it 
is — on  the  effects  of  civil  war,  but  to  the  description  of  the 
plague,  which  has  had  many  and  able  imitators,  from  Lucretius 
onwards,  but  none  to  approach  Thucydides  ;  or  to  the  seventh 
book,  the  retreat  from  Syracuse,  of  which  Macaulay  said, 
"  There  is  no  prose  composition  in  the  world,  not  even  the  De 
Corona,  which  I  place  so  high,"  and  Gray,  "Is  it  or  is  it  not 
the  finest  thing  you  ever  read  in  your  life  V  ^  Macaulay 
speaks  of  the  "  intense  interest,"  the  "  magnificent  light  and 
the  terrible  shade  of  Thucydides  ;  "  *  and  these  words  apply  not 
only  to  the  Sicilian  expedition,  but  to  the  whole  narrative.  In 
some  instances  they  apply  also  to  the  speeches.  The  speeches 
are  not  in  all  instances  devoted  wholly  to  political  wisdom. 
Characters  are  drawn,  as,  e.g.  in  the  speeches  of  Alcibiades, 
Nicias,  Archidamus,  and  Pericles.  While  in  other  speeches, 
e.g.  the  funeral  oration,  the  appeal  of  the  Platseans,  the  final 
speech  of  Nicias  to  his  men,  the  light  is  as  magnificent  and  the 
shade  as  terrible  as  in  any  part  of  the  narrative. 

The  language  of  Thucydides  is  often  considered  obscure  and 
difficult.  Obscure,  in  the  sense  tliat  he  does  not  quite  know 
what  he  wishes  to  express,  he  certainly  is  not.  With  regard 
to  the  difficulty  of  his  style,  it  is  necessary  to  draw  a  distinc- 
tion. When  he  is  narrating  events,  his  style  is  simple,  powerful, 
and  beautiful.  When  he  begins  to  philosophise  and  to  genera- 
lise, he  begins  to  be  difficult  to  imderstand.  But  here  again  we 
must  distinguish.  The  philosophical  reflections  of  Thucydides 
are  contained  mostly  in  the  speeches,  and  it  is  in  the  speeches 
th&t  he  most  conspicuously  departs  from  his  resolve  to  describe 
the  simple  facts  of  the  war  without  any  attempt  to  please  the 
ear.  It  is  in  the  speeches  that  Tliucydides  deliberately  makes 
an  attempt  at  form,  and  whereas  when  he  makes  no  efi"ort  he 

^  Life  of  Lord  Macaulay,  App.  475.  2  Jowett's  Thucydides,  xLt. 

'  See  Life  of  Macaulay,  i.  449.  *  Ibid.  458. 


344  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LETERATURE. 

aov,s  attain  form,  he  as  signally  fails  when  he  is  faithless  to  hia 
principle  of  not  seeking  after  effect.  Doubtless,  iu  throwing 
his  own  recollections  or  the  reports  of  others  into  the  form  of 
direct  speeches,  Thucydides  was  practically  obeying  necessity. 
To  the  Greek,  in  whose  life,  from  the  time  of  Homer,  publia 
speaking  occupied  a  large  place,  to  the  Athenian  above  all, 
whose  main  occupation  in  time  of  peace  was  the  making  and 
hearing  of  political  speeches,  a  history  which  contained  no 
speeches  would  have  been  no  faithful  reflection  of  political 
life.  Thus  Thucydides  felt  himself  to  a  certain  extent  con- 
strained by  his  desire  to  write  a  faithful  history  to  introduce 
direct  oration  ;  and  thus  he  was  constrained  to  strive  after 
form ;  for  to  merely  reproduce  by  an  act  of  memory  the  original 
form  in  which  the  speeches  were  delivered  was,  as  he  tells  us, 
impossible.  In  this  attempt  at  form  Thucydides  allowed  him- 
self to  be  guided  by  the  precept  and  the  example  of  the  early 
rhetoricians,  who,  though  they  helped  to  lay  the  foundations  of 
Greek  oratory,  were  immeasurably  removed  from  even  the  natu- 
ral ease  and  grace  of  Lysias,  much  more  from  the  perfection  of 
Demosthenes.  Thus  the  mistakes  of  Thucydides  are  the  mistakes 
of  his  masters,  not  his  own,  and  their  mistakes  were  incidental 
to  and  inevitable  in  the  earliest  attempts  to  form  artistic  prose. 
The  florid  rhetoric  of  Gorgias  appears  in  bad  taste  to  us,  but  to 
the  Athenians  of  his  time  it  was  a  revelation.  It  showed  that 
beauty  was  possible  in  prose  as  well  as  in  verse.  Its  principal 
defect — that  it  ignored  the  diff'erence  between  poetry  and  prose 
— we,  who  have  great  prose-writings  to  compare  with  it,  can 
readily  see.  But  Thucydides,  who  had  to  create  prose,  may  be 
excused  for  joining  the  rest  of  Athens  in  admiration  of  the 
rhetoricians.  Thus  the  conceits  of  Thucydides,  to  which  hia 
difficulty  is  partly  due,  are  owing  to  the  early  stage  of  develop- 
ment to  which  prose  and  oratory  in  his  time  had  reached, 

A  second  cause  is  to  be  found  in  the  undeveloped  stage  of 
the  language.  Although  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
thought  is  to  a  limited  extent  possible  without  language,  no 
considerable  or  continuous  advance  of  thought  is  so  possible. 
An  idea,  once  captured  and  imprisoned,  so  to  speak,  in  a  word, 
is  thenceforward  available  to  succeeding  generations.  Thus  the 
child  in  learning  the  meanings  of  words  is  storing  its  mind 
with  ideas.  By  means  of  language  the  child,  as  with  seven- 
leagued  boots,  traverses  large  spaces  in  the  realm  of  thought, 
which  its  ancestors  took  years  to  subjugate  by  means  of  lan- 
guage, and  which  are  still  firmly  held  by  the  words  they 
planted  there.     We  at  the  present  day  inherit  a  language  the 


history:  thucydides.  345 

total  number  of  whose  words  is  several  times  greater  than  the 
number  any  single  one  of  us  uses  ;  while  though  there  are 
many  words — technical  ones — which  the  majority  of  us  do  not 
even  know  the  meaning  of,  we  can,  when  necessary,  acquire 
that  knowledge  by  a  reference  to  a  dictionary.  It  is,  therefore, 
hard  for  us  to  realise  a  stage  of  language  in  which  there  were 
more  ideas  tharf  there  were  words  to  express  them,  and  in 
which  there  was  not  only  no  dictionary  to  explain  the  mean- 
ing of  words,  but  the  very  idea  that  it  was  possible  to  define 
the  meaning  of  a  word  was  a  new  and  startling  conception, 
which  was  used  by  Socrates,  the  originator  thereof,  as  long  as 
he  had  a  monopoly  of  it,  to  the  utter  discomfiture  of  all  who 
came  in  argument  against  him.  Yet  this  was  the  state  of  the 
language  by  means  of  which  Thucydides  had  to  convey  ideas 
that  the  world  had  yet  never  conceived  of.  Further,  at  the 
present  day  our  linguistic  conscience  permits  us  to  take  a  word 
wherever  we  find  it  if  we  want  it,  or,  indeed,  if  we  do  not  much 
want  it.  From  naked  savages  on  opposite  sides  of  the  world 
we  take  the  words  "palaver"  and  "taboo,"  as  readily  as  we 
appropriate  a  technicality  from  languages  that  are  dead.  But 
Thucydides  borrowed  neither  ideas  nor  the  words  to  clothe 
them  in.     He  writes  pure  Attic. 

Hitherto  we  have  spoken  as  though  the  lack  of  a  vocabulary 
were  the  only  difficulty  with  which  Thucydides  had  to  contend  ; 
but  a  still  more  serious  difficulty  was  that  the  language  had  as 
yet  no  settled  or  recognised  grammar.  By  this  is  meant  not 
merely  that  some  centuries  had  yet  to  elapse  before  Dionysius 
Thrax  was  to  make  the  first  attempt  to  throw  together  a  body 
of  rules  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  beginning  of  Greek 
grammar.  People  may  and  must  speak  grammatically  before 
the  principles  on  which  they — or  those  best  worth  attention — 
speak  can  be  observed  and  noted  in  a  grammar.  But  Thucy- 
dides belongs  to  a  time  when  people  did  not,  even  uncon- 
sciously, systematically  follow  the  same  analogies  or  the  same 
principles  under  similar  circumstances.  It  is  not,  therefore,  to 
be  wondered  at  if,  in  the  absence  of  grammatical  moulds  to 
I'eceive  it,  the  thought  of  Thucydides  should  overflow  in  some 
sentences,  or  solidify  into  some  shape  for  which  later  literature 
has  no  parallel  or  only  a  distant  analogy,  ^ov  is  it  strange 
if,  under  the  weight  of  Thucydides'  thought,  which  would  have 
strained  the  strength  of  a  more  developed  language,  Attic  in 
its  then  cartilaginous  and  plastic  condition  should  have  some- 
times yielded,  and  have  sometimes  betrayed  the  weight  thrown 
on  it. 


346  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

It  has  been  the  custom  to  institute  comparisons  hetween 
Thucydides  and  other  historians,  mainly,  cne  would  suppose, 
because  Thucydides  is  by  far  the  greatest  of  historians.  Be- 
tween him  and  Herodotus  or  Xenophon  the  comparison  must 
be  one  of  contrast,  and  is  one  which  the  reader  may  be  left  to 
draw  out  for  himself ;  but  on  the  comparison  between  him  and 
Roman  historians  a  word  must  be  said.  In  the  first  place,  in 
any  such  comparison  it  should  be  noticed  that  Herodotus, 
Thucydides,  and  Xenophon,  whatever  the  differences  between 
them,  all  belong  to  a  literature  which  is  essentially  original  and 
creative ;  whereas  the  Roman  historians  belong  to  a  literature 
which  is  not  original  or  creative.  In  the  next  place,  the  tliree 
Greek  historians  belong  to  the  best  period  of  Greek  literature, 
but  the  Roman  historians  do  not  belong  to  the  golden  age  of 
Latin  literature.  As  to  the  comparison  between  Thucydides 
and  Sallust,  what  resemblance  imitation  could  produce  there 
is ;  but  genius  cannot — certainly  that  of  Thucydides  cannot — 
be  imitated.  Between  Thucydides  and  Tacitus  there  are  some 
points  of  resemblance.  Both  are  great  historians  ;  both  have  a 
profound  knowledge  of  human  nature ;  and  both  take  some- 
what pessimistic  views  of  human  nature  and  of  life.  As  to 
style,  both  possess  great  power ;  both  are  difficult  at  times  to 
understand,  and  brevity  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  each. 
But  to  imagine  that  to  Thucydides  in  his  own  line  it  is  possible 
to  compare  Tacitus,  great  as  he  is,  is  a  mistake.  The  first 
quality  demanded  of  a  historian  is  credibility  ;  and  whatever 
conclusion  we  may  come  to  about  the  credibility  of  Tacitus,  it 
is  impossible  to  maintain  that  his  reputation  stands  as  high  as 
that  of  Thucydides  in  this  respect.  Thucydides  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  scientific  history,  but  Tacitus  has  built  elsewhere. 
Both  historians  draw  largely  on  oral  testimony ;  but  whereas 
Thucydides  understood  that  the  historian  should  go  only  to 
witnesses  of  the  events  he  wished  to  record,  and  that  their 
evidence,  and  even  his  own  recollection  of  what  he  has  himself 
Been,  require  testing  and  corroborating,  Tacitus  was  content 
with  hearsay  evidence  at  third  or  fourth  hand.  When  Thucy- 
dides had  recourse  to  documentary  evidence,  it  was,  as  far  as 
we  can  discover,  to  official  documents  that  he  went ;  or,  if  he 
has  occasion  to  refer  to  other  histories,  it  is  in  a  way  which 
shows  that  he  criticised  them  closely.  Tacitus,  on  the  othei 
hand,  has  as  little  notion  of  criticising  documentary  as  oral 
testimony,  and  relies  on  partisan  memoirs  as  though  they  wera 
wholly  true. 

We  expect  in  a  historian  not  only  capacity  to  ascertain  facts, 


HISTORY  :    THUCYDIDES.  347 

but  impartiality  in  stating  them ;  and  this  quality  no  historian 
possesses  so  eminently  as  Thucydides.  He  writes  an  impaitial 
history  of  a  struggle  in  which  he  himself  was  one  of  the  com- 
batants. Tacitus  writes  a  partial  history  of  events  from  which 
he  was  so  far  removed  in  time  that  we  might  have  reasonably 
expected  from  him  an  unbiassed  history.  Thucydides'  love  for 
his  native  country — and  it  was  great — never  leads  him  to  exag- 
gerate the  successes  or  minimise  the  defeats  or  the  defects  of 
Athens.  Tacitus  shares  the  weak  amiability  of  Livy  in  nevei 
admitting  a  Roman  defeat  if  it  is  possible  to  close  his  eyes 
to  it.  In  politics  there  is  the  same  distance  between  the  two 
historians.  Thucydides  had  political  views,  but  he  was  a  mode- 
rate politician,  and  his  views  were  such  that  they  rather  assisted 
him  than  prevented  him  from  comprehending  the  standpoint  of 
others.  Tacitus,  on  the  other  hand,  shared  the  yearning  of  his 
order  after  a  state  of  things  which  it  was  impossible  to  restore 
— yearnings  which  the  nobility  of  Rome  expressed  the  more 
virulently  because  they  were  conscious  that  they  had  not  the 
energy  or  the  courage  to  do  anything  to  get  what  they  sighed 
for.  Tacitus  was,  on  the  whole,  hostile  to  the  political  regime 
which  he  undertook  to  portray. 

Let  us  now  consider  Tacitus  and  Thucydides,  not  as  histo- 
rians, but  from  the  literary  point  of  view.  Both  suffer  from  the 
inconveniences  entailed  by  their  following  the  annalistic  method  ; 
but  these  inconveniences  are  felt  much  more  strongly  in  Tacitus 
than  in  Thucydides.  It  is  no  depreciation  of  Tacitus  to  say 
that,  great  as  is  the  interest  with  which  we  read  him,  it  is  not 
the  intense  interest  which  Thucydides  inspires.  The  power  of 
Tacitus  as  a  writer  is  great  and  undeniable,  and  he  is  a  master 
of  light  and  shade,  but  it  is  not  the  magnificent  light  and  the 
terrible  shade  of  Thucydides.^  Both  writers  have  the  power 
of  brevity,  and  this  is  frequently  considered  to  constitute  a  great 
resemblance  between  them ;  but  there  is  no  difference  between 
them  so  great  and  so  characteristic  as  this  supposed  point  of 
resemblance.  Where  the  sentences  of  Thucydides  are  brief, 
it  is  because  they  are  surcharged  with  thought ;  they  are 
weighty  with  wisdom,  and  they  sink  into  the  mind.  The 
sentences  of  Tacitus  are  brief  because  ejaculatory,  exclamatory, 
objurgatory.  The  one  is  the  brevity  of  condensation,  the 
other  of  amputation.  Thucydides'  is  the  brevity  of  dignity, 
Tacitus'  the  brevity  of  breathlessness.  In  fine,  Tacitus  is  a 
**8tylist,"  Thucydides   is  none.      Thucydides  is  a  perpetual 

^  S«e  Macaulay,  loc.  cU. 


348  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

demonstration  that  there  is  a  higher  art  than  that  of  concealing 
art— the  art  of  dispensing  with  it. 


CHAPTEE  IV. 

XENOPHON. 

Xenophon,  an  Athenian,  was  probably  born  about  b.o.  429, 

for  at  the  time  of  the  expedition  of  the  Ten  Thousand  Greeks 
under  Cyrus,  which  took  place  in  B.C.  401,  he  seems  to  have 
been  under  thirty  years  of  age.^  Yet  he  cannot  have  been 
much  under  that  age,  for  he  was  already  married,^  and  had 
come  to  be  on  intimate  terms  with  Socrates,  whose  advice  he 
asked  whether  he  should  join  the  expedition  or  not.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  a  story  that  Xenophon  took  part  in  the 
battle  of  Delium,  b.o.  424,  and  was  saved  in  the  flight  of  the 
Athenians  by  Socrates.  If  this  were  true,  then  Xenophon 
must  have  been  about  twenty  years  old  in  B.O.  424.  But  the 
story  seems  to  be  of  late  origin.  It  receives  no  confirmation 
either  from  Plato,  who  mentions  a  similar  story  about  Socrates 
saving  Laches  in  the  flight  at  Delium,^  or  from  Xenophon 
himself;  while  the  passages  in  the  Anabasis  which  bear  on 
Xenophon's  age  at  the  time  of  the  expedition  are  inconsistent 
with  the  story. 

About  the  early  life  of  Xenophon  we  have  no  information. 
He  belonged  to  the  order  of  the  knights,  for  his  son  Gryllus 
served  as  a  knight  in  the  battle  of  Mantinea ;  and  the  knights, 
by  the  support  they  rendered  to  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  were  so 
unpopular  at  Athens  that  we  can  readily  understand  why 
Xenophon  should  be  inclined  to  leave  his  native  city  for  service 
abroad.  What  we  know  about  Xenophon's  life  is  derived  from 
his  writings,  and  the  first  fact  that  we  thus  have  knowledge  of 
is  that  his  friend  Proxenus,  a  Boeotian,  who  had  taken  service 
under  Cyrus,  wrote  to  him  from  Sardis  inviting  him  to  join 
tlie  Greek  contingent.  The  ofi'er  seems  to  have  been  a  tempting 
one.  Xenophon  says  that  the  reputation  of  Cyrus  attracted 
numbers,  not  of  poor  and  broken-down  Greeks,  but  of  well-to-do 
men  of  all  ages.     Some  abandoned  wife  and  children,  others 

1  Anab.  VI.  iv.  25  he  says,  6  Sf »'o<^«»'.  .  . .  i^oi^da  xal  ot  d\Xot  ol  ft^xfH 
rpidKovra,  which  is  supported  by  Anab.  III.  L  14. 
^Cic.  dt  Invent,  i.  31. 
*Sj/mpos.  22 1  A. 


history:  xenophon.  349 

ran  away  from  home;  and  others  not  only  embarked  in  the 
adventure  themselves,  but  lent  their  friends  the  money  where- 
•with  to  do  likewise.  Although  Xenophon  consulted  Socrates 
on  the  advisability  of  joining  the  expedition,  his  own  desire  to 
go  was  too  strong  to  admit  of  his  staying  in  Athens.  When 
St/crates,  who  probably  saw  that  to  join  Cyrus  would  ro  ider 
Xeno]>hon  unpopular  in  Athens,  advised  him  to  consult  the 
gods,  Xenophon  complied  indeed,  but  instead  of  asking  the 
oracle  at  Delphi  whether  he  should  or  should  not  go,  he  asked 
to  what  god  he  should  offer  sacrifice  in  order  to  be  successful 
in  his  adventure.  For  an  account  of  the  attempt  of  Cyrus  to 
dethrone  his  brother  Artaxerxes,  the  death  of  Cyrus,  the  perils 
and  hazards  through  which  the  Ten  Thousand  Greeks  went  in 
their  struggle  to  return  home,  the  reader  must  be  referred  to 
the  Greek  historian.  It  is  enough  to  say  here  that  it  was 
mainly  due  to  the  imperturbable  presence  of  mind  and  cool 
generalship  of  Xenophon  that  the  Ten  Thousand  owed  their 
safety.  One  incident  in  the  return  must  also  be  mentioned. 
It  is  that  when  the  Greeks  had  at  last  forced  their  way  to  the 
coast  of  the  Euxine,  Xenophon  conceived  the  idea  of  founding  a 
great  Greek  city  on  that  shore.  His  project  was  undermined 
by  intrigue,  and  was  not  wholly  acceptable  to  the  Ten  Thousand 
themselves ;  but  it  illustrates  the  boldness  of  Xenophon's  con- 
ceptions and  the  looseness  of  the  ties  which  bound  him  to 
his  native  city. 

Circumstances  were,  indeed,  destined  to  show  clearly  the 
weakness,  or  rather  the  want,  of  patriotism  in  Xenophon. 
Shortly  after  the  return  of  the  Ten  Thousand,  Athens  found 
herself  at  war  with  Sparta.  Xenophon,  however,  following  the 
fortunes  of  the  section  of  the  Ten  Tliousand  with  which  he  had 
identified  himself,  accompanied  the  Spartan  Agesilaus,  and  thus, 
in  B.C.  394,  found  himself  in  arms  against  Athens  at  the  battle 
of  Coronea.  The  result  of  this  behaviour  was  naturally  that 
a  decree  of  banishment  from  Athens  was  issued  against  him. 
His  services  to  Sparta,  however,  procured  him  a  new  home. 
He  was  allowed  to  purchase  lands  in  Skillus,  and  there,  living 
in  a  country  which  was  adapted  to  the  gratification  of  his  taste 
for  sport,  he  seems  to  have  devoted  himself  to  the  composition 
of  various  literary  works,  and  perhaps  of  his  account  of  the 
expedition  and  return  of  the  Ten  Thousand.  The  neighbour- 
hood of  Olympia  to  Skillus  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  meeting 
Greeks  from  all  quarters,  while  his  permanent  residence  in 
Lacedaemon  increased  the  tendency  he  naturally  had  to  sym- 
pathise with  Sparta  and  take  the  Spartan  view  of  the  history 


350  fflSTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

of  Greece.  After  he  had  resided  in  Skillus  for  eome  twelva 
years  or  so,  the  Theban  victory  at  Leuctra,  B.C.  371,  over  Sparta 
made  it  necessary  for  Xenophon  to  find  a  fresh  home,  since 
the  Eleans  once  more  entered  into  possession  of  Skillus. 
But  the  circumstances  which  drove  him  from  Skillus  thre'W 
Sparta  into  the  arms  of  Athens,  and  led  to  the  revocation  of  the 
decree  of  exile  that  had  been  in  force  against  Xenophon.  He 
does  not,  however,  seem  to  have  availed  himself  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  settle  again  in  Athens.  He  preferred  to  establish 
himself  in  Corinth,  where  he  is  said  to  have  died.  The  date  of 
his  death  is  uncertain.  It  is  sometimes  said  to  have  been  B.C. 
360.  But  he  mentions  events  which  occurred  in  B.C.  357  {Hell. 
VI.  iv.  37),  and  his  death  therefore  must  be  placed  later,  though 
it  is  difficult  to  say  how  much  later,  than  B.C.  357. 

Among  the  numerous  works  which  have  come  down  to  U3 
under  Xenophon's  name  probably  are  included  all  that  Xeno- 
phon ever  wrote — for  we  nowhere  find  mention  made  of  any 
others  composed  by  him — and  several  which  are  not  from  hia 
hand.  They  fall  into  three  divisions,  which  may  be  called, 
roughly,  historical,  philosophical,  and  miscellaneous.  The  first 
two  classes  can  only  be  described  as  historical  and  philosophi- 
cal somewhat  inaccurately,  for  under  the  head  of  historical  we 
must  include  some  which,  like  On  Revenues,  are  political,  and 
the  Gyropcedia,  which  is  romance  rather  than  history  ;  Avhile, 
although  it  is  difficult  to  find  any  other  term  than  philosophical 
to  compreliend  those  works  in  which  Socrates  figures,  the  term 
is  misleading  if  it  is  taken  to  imply  that  Xenophon  was  a 
philosopher. 

The  work  on  which  the  reputation  of  Xenophon  as  an  author 
must  always  rest,  and  which  justly  cause»  him  to  rank  high, 
though  not  amongst  the  highest,  in  Greek  literature,  is  his  account 
of  the  expedition  of  Cyrus — the  Anabasis.  The  dates  at  which 
this  work  was  composed  and  when  it  was  published  are  some- 
what uncertain.  It  seems  necessary  to  suppose  that  he  must 
have  made  notes  during  the  expedition,  for  he  not  only  gives 
minute  topograpliical  descriptions,  but  states  the  distance  of 
each  halting-place  from  the  previous  one  ;  and  the  fact  that  lie 
accompanied  the  expedition,  in  the  first  instance,  as  a  friend  of 
Proxenus,  and  not  as  an  officer  in  the  contingent,  seems  to  show 
that  he  had  at  least  the  leisure  to  make  notes,  if  he  did  not 
from  the  first  intend  to  write  an  account  of  the  cimj)aign.  But 
as  he  describes  his  residence  in  Skillus  in  the  Anabasis  (V.  iii. 
7),  it  woidd  seem  as  though  he  could  not  have  given  the  work 
its  final  form  before  he  had  been  for  some  little  time  in  Skillua 


mSTORY  :    XENOPHON.  3  5  I 

Whether  we  are  to  place  the  composition  of  the  work  still  later, 
after  B.C.  371,  when  Xenophon  removed  to  Corinth,  depends 
upon  the  interpretation  we  put  upon  the  tenses  of  some  of  the 
verbs  used  in  describing  his  residence  at  Skillus;  and  the  weight 
of  authority  is  rather  in  favour  of  regarding  the  passage  a? 
describing  a  place  in  which  at  the  time  of  writing  Xenophon 
had  ceased  to  live. 

"With  regard  to  the  authorship  of  the  Anabasis,  difficulty  ha» 
been  felt  in  consequence  of  a  passage  in  the  Hellenics  (III.  i.  2), 
in  which  Xenophon  refers  to  an  account  of  the '  expedition  0' 
Cyrus  written  by  one  Themistogenes  of  Syracuse.  It  has  been 
supposed  that  Xenophon  is  referring  to  his  own  work,  and,  for 
some  reason  or  other,  instead  of  calling  it  his  own,  prefers  to 
ascribe  it  to  an  imaginary  person.  On  the  other  hand,  it  has 
been  supposed  that  he  is  referring  to  a  work  distinct  from  his 
own,  and  really  by  Themistogenes,  of  whom  and  of  whose  work 
we  know  nothing  more.  A  third  view  is  that  Themistogenes 
collaborated  with  Xenophon  to  some  extent  in  producing  the 
Anabasis.  In  favour  of  this  last  view  there  is  nothing.  As 
for  the  second  view,  we  know  that  other  members,  or  another 
member,  of  the  expedition,  Sophsenetus,  wrote  an  account  of  it 
under  the  same  title  as  Xenophon's  work.  While  for  the  first 
view  it  may  be  said  that  there  is  some  reason  for  conjecturing 
that  in  the  CEconoviicus  also  Xenophon  conceals  himself  under 
a  fictitious  name,  Ischomachus.  But  this  is  supporting  a  con- 
jecture by  a  conjecture,  and  the  second  view  is  the  one  against 
which  there  is  least  to  be  said. 

The  story  of  the  expedition  of  Cyrus  and  of  the  return  of 
the  Ten  Thousand  is  one  which  in  its  very  nature  is  full  of 
interest  and  excitement ;  but  it  is  not  just  to  credit  the  subject 
with  all,  and  the  author  with  none,  of  tlie  interest  which  the  tale 
inspires.  Doubtless  in  dull  hands  the  story  would  have  been 
dull ;  and  certainly  the  interest  we  feel  is  to  a  large  extent  an 
interest  in  the  writer,  as  well  as  in  the  fate  of  Cyrus  and  of  the 
Ten  Thousand.  The  tale  is  told  in  a  plain  and  manly,  simple 
and  unaffected  manner,  which  at  once  wins  the  sympathy  of  the 
reader  for  the  writer,  Xenophon  writes  of  himself  always  in 
the  third  person,  but  he  contrives  to  do  so  without  awkward- 
ness. There  is  no  affectation,  and  no  affectation  of  being  un- 
affected. There  is  nothing  in  Xenophon  to  rouse  the  suspicion. 
of  any  arriere  pensee,  as  there  is  in  the  case  of  Caesar,  who  also 
wrote  in  the  third  person,  but  so  wrote  with  an  object.  The 
language  and  style  of  Xenophon  are  a  reflection  of  his  manly  and 
straightforward  character.     The  style  is  manly  not  only  in  ita 


352  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

vigour,  but  in  that  it  is  graceful  yet  not  adorned.  It  is  tran» 
parent,  and  therein  it  faithfully  mirrors  the  mind  of  Xenophon, 
which  was  clear  and  shallow.  His  language  is  Attic,  but  it  ia 
not  pure  Attic.  He  was  true  neither  to  his  native  city  nor  to 
his  native  tongue.  His  want  of  patriotism  brought  a  necessary 
literary  Nemesis.  Attic  in  its  purity  could  only  be  spoken  by 
those  Athenians  who  lived  in  Athens  in  constant  interco'irse 
witli  their  fellow-citizens.  The  Athenian  who  chose  to  live 
abroad  among  foreigners  speaking  bad  Greek,  or  native  Greeks 
speaking  other  dialects  than  that  of  Athens,  necessarily  picked 
up  words,  phrases,  and  turns  of  expression  which  the  literary 
instinct  of  home-keeping  Athenians  eschewed.  Hence  the  voca- 
bulary of  Xenophon  presents  many  variations  from  the  best 
Attic,  and  many  points  of  resemblance  to  the  common  dialect. 

The  Hellenics,  in  seven  books,  relates  the  history  of  Greece 
from  B.C.  411  to  the  battle  of  Mantinea  in  B.C.  362.  The  work 
was  evidently  not  written  all  at  one  time,  and  seems  to  fall  into 
three  jmrts,  composed  probably  at  considerable  intervals.  The 
first  part  consists  of  Books  I.  and  II.,  which  take  up  the  history 
of  the  Peloponnesian  war  at  the  point  at  which  the  uncompleted 
work  of  Thucydides'  finishes,  and  end  with  the  end  of  the 
struggle  between  Athens  and  Sparta.  The  second  part  consists 
of  Books  III.  and  IV.  It  is  distinguished  from  the  first  part 
both  by  differences  of  language  and  by  a  difference  of  plan.  In 
the  first  part  Xenophon  follows  the  annalistic  method  of  Thucy- 
dides, arranging  events  according  to  the  years  in  which  they 
occurred ;  while  in  the  second  part  he  does  not  follow  this  strict 
and  inconvenient  chronological  method,  but  groups  events  and 
traces  out  the  history  of  one  group  before  entering  on  another. 
From  the  third  part  the  second  is  distinguished  by  a  change 
of  political  feeling  which  evidently  has  come  over  Xenophon. 
Whereas  in  the  first  two  parts  of  his  work  he  has  a  great  admi- 
ration and  afi'ection  for  Sparta,  by  the  time  he  came  to  write 
the  third  part,  his  admiration  for  Sparta  had  received  a  great 
shock.  The  Spartans  had  sworn  during  the  Peloponnesian  war 
to  give  the  cities  of  Greece  freedom,  had  violated  their  oath,  and 
had  been  visited  by  a  punishment  which,  by  its  nature,  showed 
beyond  the  possibility  of  doubt  that  it  was  inflicted  by  Heaven. 
The  very  people  to  whom  the  Spartans  had  especially  perjured 
themselves — the  Thebans — had  unassisted  brought  vengeance 
on  Sparta  {Hell.  V.  iv.  i).  Further,  there  are  internal  indica- 
tions that  the  first  part  of  the  Hellenics  was  composed  earlier 
than  the  third.  The  third  part  contains  a  reference  to  the 
death  of  Alexander  of  Pherae,  which  took  place  about  b.o.  359- 


HISTORY  :    XENOPHON.  353 

^57,  and  must  have  received  its  final  form  after  that  date  ; 
whereas  the  first  part  cannot  have  been  composed  so  long  as 
forty  years  after  the  amnesty  of  Thrasybuhis.^ 

Before  accepting  the  unfavourable  verdicts  wliich  have  been 
passed  on  the  Hellenics  as  history,  we  must  examine  the  leading 
defects  which  have  been  brought  against  it,  and  the  causes 
which  have  been  imagined  to  explain  them.  The  work  is 
alleged  to  be  both  deficient  and  redundant,  to  be  inconsequen- 
tial in  the  narrative,  and  unfaithful  to  its  plan.  But  here  we 
must  distinguish  between  the  first  part,  consisting  of  Books  I. 
and  II.,  and  the  rest  of  the  work.  In  the  first  part  it  is  true 
that  many  events  are  neglected  or  treated  with  great  brevity 
which  from  their  importance  demanded  a  fuller  treatment, 
while  points  of  much  less  importance  are  related  in  great  detail 
It  is  true  also  that  in  the  first  part  many  things  are  related  in 
an  inconsequential  manner,  are  brought  suddenly  before  the 
reader  without  any  introduction  or  necessary  explanation ;  and 
it  is  true  that  Xenophon  does  not  adhere  with  fidelity  to  the 
annalistic  method,  which,  on  the  whole,  he  evidently  intends  to 
follow.  But  with  the  rest  of  the  work  the  case  is  different.  In 
the  second  and  third  parts  Xenophon  abandons  the  annalistic 
method  wholly ;  the  deficiencies,  redundancies,  and  want  of 
sequence  are  inconsiderable,  and  the  defects  of  style  and  care- 
lessness of  language  of  the  first  two  books  are  much  less 
noticeable. 

But  in  the  first  two  books  the  defects  do  exist,  and  various 
attempts  have  been  made  to  account  for  them.  It  has  been 
said  that  Xenophon  omits  what  was  to  the  prejudice  of  Sparta 
or  to  the  credit  of  Athens,  and  dwells  on  things  discreditable 
to  Athens  and  creditable  to  Sparta.  But  although  Xenophon 
had  an  honest  admiration  for  the  constitution  of  Sparta  and  for 
her  military  character,  he  certainly  has  not  followed  any  syste- 
matic design  of  depreciating  his  native  country  and  extolling 
the  country  of  his  afi"ections  by  means  of  the  suppressio  veri. 
The  omissions  can  by  no  means  all  be  accounted  for  on  this 
hypothesis,  nor  can  the  redundancies.  It  has  therefore  been 
S^lggested  that  the  key  to  the  niisproportionate  treatment  of 
events  in  the  Hellenics  is  Xenophon's  likes  and  dislikes  gete- 
rally,  not  merely  his  political  tendencies.  This,  like  the  pre- 
vious hypothesis,  accounts  for  some  of  the  facts,  but  fails  to 
account  for  the  majority.     Persons  in  whom  Xenophon  for  one 

^  II.  iv.  43 :  Kal  6fi6(j'atfTfS  SpKovs  Jj  firjv  fiTj  /jLvrjcnKaK-qireiv  in  Kal  vvv  bfiov 
re  wokireiovrai,  Kal  rois  6pKots  infihei.  6  h^ixoz — words  which  must  have  beeo 
written  before  the  recollection  and  necessity  of  the  amnesty  had  died  out 


3  54         HISTORY  OF  I  REEK  LITERATURE. 

reason  or  another  took  a  special  interest  he  naturally  described 
at  length  ;  and  yet  military  matters  in  which  he  took  a  special 
interest  are  in  many  cases  dismissed  with  surprising  brevity. 
A  third  hypothesis  supposes  that  Xenophon's  information  varied 
in  amount.  Places  he  had  visited,  events  he  had  witnessed, 
and  persons  he  had  himself  met,  he  would  have  a  good  deal  of 
information  about ;  whereas  he  would  know  less  of  others.  And 
it  is  true  that  many  places  and  events  which  he  had  himself 
been  present  at  are  described  very  fully,  but  many  are  dismissed 
very  briefly ;  and  he  also  possesses  fuU  information  derived  from 
other  sources  than  personal  observation. 

The  three  hypotheses  each  contribute  something  towards  the 
explanation  of  the  very  considerable  blemishes  which  mar  the 
first  two  books  of  the  Hellenics.  But  though  they  explain  them, 
they  do  not  in  the  least  excuse  them.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
historian  to  allow  neither  political  feeling  nor  private  prejudice 
to  influence  him,  and  it  is  also  his  business  to  obtain  informa 
tion  of  events  which  he  did  not  himself  witness.  If  Xenophou 
suppressed  the  truth  and  neglected  to  acqxiaint  himself  with  the 
facts  he  ought  to  have  narrated,  he  was  a  bad,  and  a  very  bad 
historian.  The  only  possible  way  of  saving  his  credit  is  to  sup- 
pose that  the  first  two  books  are  an  incomplete  work,  and  then 
further  to  suppose  that  Xenophon  would  have  corrected  the 
deficiencies  in  his  work  if  he  had  completed  it.  But  these  are 
suppositions  which  admit  of  no  proof,  and  find  but  little  sup- 
port. The  first  two  books  were  probably  composed  before 
Xenophon  joined  the  expedition  of  Cyrus,  and  as  lie  lived  forty 
or  more  years  after  that,  it  cannot  be  alleged  he  had  not  time 
to  revise  and  complete  the  work.  We  may  indeed  add  to  con- 
jecture conjecture,  and  conjecture  that  other  literary  projects — 
the  Anabasis,  the  Ci/ropcedia,  &c. — drove  the  revision  of  the 
first  part  of  the  Hellenics  out  of  his  head ;  and  then  we  may 
further  conjecture,  that  although  Xenophon  took  up  the  history 
of  Greece,  and  wrote,  and  perhaps  published,  the  two  other  parts 
of  the  Hellenics,  the  first  part  was  never  revised  by  him,  and 
only  published  after  his  death.  But  if  we  bear  in  mind  that 
Xenophon  was  a  young  man  at  the  time  when  he  probably 
wrote  the  first  part  of  the  Hellenics,  and  that  he  was  a  Greek 
and  belonged  to  the  party  which  supported  the  Thirty  Tyrants, 
we  shall  not  have  much  diflliculty  in  believing  that  he  was  to 
some  extent  influenced  by  political  feelir.g ;  that  he  was  not 
exempt  from  private  prejudice ;  and  that  the  interval  between 
the  death  of  Thucydides  (before  which  the  Hellenics  could  not 
well  have  been  begun)  and  the  expedition  of  Cyrus  was  short 


history:  xenophon.  355 

enough  to  prevent  Xenophon  from  obtaining  full  information 
on  all  points  treated  of  in  the  first  two  books. 

Two  other  attempts  have  indeed  been  made  to  save  Xeno- 
phon's  credit  as  an  historian.  It  has  been  maintained  that  we 
have  not  his  work  as  he  wrote  it,  but  an  epitome ;  and  in  sup- 
port of  this  view  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  Plutarch,  in  his 
lives  of  Alcibiades,  Agesilaus,  and  Lysander,  while  frequently 
agreeing  with  Xenophon,  frequently  has  full  information  where 
the  Hellenics  is  silent.  The  inference  drawn  from  this  is  that 
Plutarch  had  before  him  the  original  Hellenics,  while  we  have 
only  extracts  or  an  epitome.  But  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
any  one  endeavouring  to  summarise  the  Hellenics  woitld  have 
produced  such  an  uneven  and  disproportioned  work  as  the  Hel- 
lenics;  while  the  argument  drawn  from  Plutarch  only  shows 
that  Plutarch  had  other  sources  besides  Xenophon  to  draw  upon. 
The  Hellenics  in  nowise  resembles  an  epitome,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  Plutarch  possessed  the  Hellenics  in  any 
form  different  to  the  one  in  which  we  have  the  work. 

The  other  attempt  is  based  upon  the  fact  that  Xenophon 
takes  up  the  history  of  Greece  where  Thucydides  stopped.  It 
assumes  that  the  materials  which  Thucydides  had  collected  for 
the  history  of  the  end  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  but  which  he 
did  not  live  to  work  into  shape,  came  into  the  hands  of  Xeno- 
phon, who  was  intrusted  with  the  duty  or  conceived  the  idea 
of  completing  Thucydides'  history.  These  materials,  it  is  fur- 
ther assumed,  were  of  varying  character ;  hence  the  deficiencies 
and  redundancies  of  the  Hellenics.  The  sole  support  for  this 
theory  is  a  statement  made  by  Diogenes  Laertius  that  Xeno- 
phon rescued  the  work  of  Thucydides  from  the  obscurity  which 
threatened  to  engulph  it.  But  even  were  Diogenes  to  be  relied 
on,  he  says  nothing  about  the  materials  for  the  conclusion  of 
Thucydides'  work ;  and  it  would  have  been  the  duty  of  Xeno- 
phon to  supply  the  deficiency  in  the  materials  which  Thucydides 
had  collected,  and  not  aggravate  the  defect  by  treating  other 
points  redundantly.  But  the  whole  theory  is  inconsistent  with 
the  character  of  the  Hellenics,  and  may  safely  be  rejected.  It 
leads  us,  however,  to  an  interesting  question,  that  is,  the  rela- 
tion of  Xenophon's  work  to  that  of  Thucydides. 

Xenophon  certainly  takes  up  the  history  of  Greece  whera 
Thucydides  stops,  but  it  is  uncertain  whether  he  designed  his 
■work  as  the  completion  of  Thucydides'  unfinished  history,  or^ 
wishing  to  write  a  history  of  Greece,  abstained  from  going  again 
over  ground  which  the  greatest  of  historians  had  made  his  own. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  Hellenics  has  no  formal  opening,  such  at 


3  56  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

the  histories  of  Herodotus  and  Thucydides  have,  but  opens 
with  a  sentence  and  in  a  way  which  are  only  intelligible  if  the 
reader  has  the  concluding  words  of  Thucydides  in  his  mind. 
Further,  there  seems  some  reason  to  suppose  that  for  a  time  the 
first  two  books  of  the  Hellenics  commonly  made  part  of  the 
same  manuscript  as  contained  the  work  of  Thucydides,  and 
were  even  regarded  as  forming  a  ninth  book  to  Thucydides. 
Finally,  in  the  first  two  books,  Xenophon  adopts  Thucydides' 
method  of  relating  events  according  to  the  years  in  which  they 
occurred,  while  in  the  rest  of  the  Hellenics  he  adopts  a  lesu  con- 
strained system.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  said  that  Theopom- 
pus  also  began  his  history  of  Greece  at  the  point  where  Thucy- 
dides' work  ceases,  as  also  did  Cratippus ;  and  in  the  case  of 
Theopompus  there  seems  reason  to  believe  that  he  prefixed  a 
general  introduction  to  his  work,  thus  showing  that,  although 
the  point  at  which  he  began  was  determined  by  the  extent  of 
Thucydides'  history,  he  did  not  intend  his  work  merely  to 
supply  the  gap  which  death  made  in  Thucydides'  design.  The 
absence  of  an  introduction  to  the  Hellenics  has  been  used  as 
an  argument  to  show  that  the  work  is  incomplete,  but  several 
other  of  Xenophon's  works  lack  an  introduction,  and,  whatever 
may  be  the  reason  of  this,  the  fact  suffices  to  rebut  the  inference. 
As  for  Xenophon's  use  of  the  annalistic  method,  it  is  said  the 
reason  why  he  employs  it  in  the  first  two  books  and  not  in  the 
rest  of  the  Hellenics  is  that  it  is  specially  adapted  for  narrating 
the  course  of  a  war,  and  is  not  adapted  for  the  more  general 
history  in  the  later  books.  This  argument,  however,  is  not 
conclusive,  for  if  the  annalistic  method  is  awkward  for  general 
history,  it  is  also  very  awkward  for  the  history  of  a  war ;  and 
if  Xenophon  abandoned  it  in  the  one  case  and  not  in  the  other, 
he  probably  had  some  reason  for  his  proceeding.  It  seems,  on 
the  whole,  probable  that  the  desire  to  complete  what  Thucy- 
dides' death  left  incomplete  was  the  motive  which  first  induced 
Xenophon  to  undertake  the  Hellenics  ;  and  that  when  he  had 
carried  the  history  to  the  end  of  the  struggle  between  Athens 
and  Sparta,  i.e.  written  the  first  two  books,  he  had  no  intention 
of  writing  more.  He  may  even  have  given  those  books  to  the 
world  before  he  conceived  the  idea  of  continuing  the  history  of 
Greece.  At  any  rate,  a  long  time  probably  elapsed  before  he 
began  the  second  part  of  the  Hellenics,  which  was  followed  at 
an  interval  b}'  the  third  part. 

The  Hellenics  and  the  Anabasis  are,  strictly  speaking,  the  only 
historical  works  of  Xenophon.  In  the  other  works  which  we 
group  with  them  there  is  more  or  less  of  history,  but  they  have 


history:  xenophon.  357 

other  objects  than  that  of  narrating  events  as  they  occurred. 
Our  opinion  of  Xenophon  as  a  historian  must  be  based  on  tho 
Anabasis  and  the  Hellenics.  He  is  seen  at  his  best  in  tho 
Anabasis.  The  places  which  he  has  himself  visited,  the  events 
in  which  he  himself  took  part,  he  gives  an  excellent  account  of. 
He  writes  simply,  clearly,  and  effectively.  We  feel  that  he  is 
stating  truthfully  the  results  of  keen  observation.  Further,  the 
subject  being  military,  is  one  in  which  he  was  versed  practi- 
cally and  on  which  he  wrote  authoritatively.  But  other  qualities 
are  needed  in  a  historian  than  the  power  to  describe  a  military 
expedition  or  to  narrate  clearly  his  own  experiences  ;  and  when 
we  come  to  the  Hellenics,  we  find  that  Xenophon  was  wanting 
in  those  qualities.  He  has  not  the  intellectual  power  to  grasp 
the  whole  of  his  subject  and  the  general  tendency  of  different 
sets  of  events.  Consequently  he  fails  to  give  the  proper  pro- 
portions to  the  various  parts  of  his  work.  Nor  has  he  the  moral 
qualities  which  go  to  the  making  of  a  great  historian.  Admir- 
able as  Xenophon  was  in  all  matters  of  private  life,  he  lacked 
the  power  to  subordinate  his  prejudices  to  the  desire  of  stating 
the  whole  truth.  He  was  indeed  free  from  the  bias  of  patriot- 
ism, but  he  was  incapable  of  holding  the  scale  between  Athens 
and  Sparta,  or  of  taking  the  impersonal  view  of  history  which 
honourably  distinguishes  Thucydides. 

The  Cyropcedia  or  Education  of  Cyrus  relates  not  merely  the 
education  but  the  life  of  Cyrus,  and  the  fruits  of  his  education 
as  shown  in  his  life.  The  work  is  biographical  in  character, 
but  it  is  not  a  biography  designed  as  a  contribution  to  history. 
It  is  a  biography  with  a  purpose.  Xenophon  chose  Cyrus  for 
the  subject  of  a  biography  because  in  him  he  saw  the  model  of 
a  king,  and  in  a  description  of  his  career  he  saw  the  possibility 
of  demonstrating  the  superiority  of  monarchy  to  democracy. 
The  Cyropcedia  is,  therefore,  didactic  as  much  as  biographical. 
Further,  the  didactic  purpose  of  Xenophon  demanded  that  the 
character  of  Cyrus  should  be  idealised.  His  object  was  not 
to  discover  by  careful  investigation  what  the  actual  facts  of 
Cyrus'  life  were,  but  to  describe  the  life  as  he  conceived  it  to 
l>e.  Granted,  as  Xenophon  was  led  to  believe,  that  Cyrus  was 
a  perfect  king ;  all  that  remained  was  for  Xenophon  to  describe 
a  perfect  king.  For  this  purpose  it  was  not  necessary  to  weigh 
conflicting  traditions  against  one  another,  or  to  pursue  historical 
investigations  into  a  period  so  remote  from  Xenophon's  own 
time  as  that  of  the  great  Cyrus.  It  was  only  necessary  that 
Xenophon  should  draw  on  his  own  conceptions  of  what  quali- 
ties make  a  great  king  and  what  things  a  great  king  would 


358  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

do.  Accordingly  we  find  that  in  the  Cyropcedia  are  reproduced 
the  favourite  convictions  of  Xcnophon  on  political  and  ethical 
matters ;  and  we  can  see  clearly  that  they,  and  not  historical 
evidence,  are  the  sources  of  the  Cyropcedia.  For  Xenophon 
the  model  of  a  state  was  Sparta ;  accordingly  we  find  him  attri- 
buting to  the  Persians  Spartan  customs.  Xenophon's  teacher 
in  morals  was  Socrates,  and  accordingly  we  find  the  Cyropcedia 
imbued  with  Socratic  ideas.  For  the  younger  Cyrus,  whose 
expedition  he  joined,  Xenophon  had  a  great  admiration,  and  it 
is  not  accidental  that  the  great  Cyrus  in  the  Cyropcedia  has 
many  qualities  in  common  with  his  descendant. 

The  Cyropoidia  is  frequently  called  a  political  or  philoso- 
phical novel.  It  is  written,  as  we  have  said,  with  a  political  and 
a  philosophical  purpose ;  but  it  is  hardly  a  novel.  A  novel 
must  have  a  plot,  while  the  Cyropcedia  is  a  biography  and  has 
not  a  plot.  At  the  same  time  there  is  much  in  it  which  has  no 
claim  to  historical  truth,  and  some  things  which  are  in  contra- 
diction with  the  truth  of  history  ;  while  the  scenes,  and  to  some 
extent  the  characters,  are  shadowy,  and  have  no  claim  to  be 
regarded  as  real  or  historical.  It  is,  therefore,  fiction  to  a 
certain  point,  although  there  is  in  it  a  residuum  of  historical 
truth,  which  Xenophon  may  have  picked  up  partly  from  the 
works  of  Ctesias,  and  partly  during  his  travels  with  the  Ten 
Thousand.  The  work,  therefore,  seems  better  described  as  an 
idealised  biography  with  a  didactic  purpose.  We  must  not 
therefore  criticise  it  as  history  or  as  fiction,  but  rather  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  author,  that  is,  as  a  didactic  work.  From 
this  point  of  view  it  fully  deserves  the  high  position  which  has 
at  all  times  been  assigned  to  it.  Judged  from  the  strictly 
literary  point  of  view,  it  ranks  highest  among  all  Xenophon's 
works.  The  lucidity,  ease,  and  grace  which  are  characteristic 
of  his  style  are  here  conspicuous.  To  apply  the  test  of  history 
to  it  is  false  criticism,  and  to  criticise  it  as  fiction  is  perhaps 
unfair,  since  the  author  had  no  intention  of  writing  fiction.  Yet 
it  is  impossible  not  to  note  the  weakness  of  the  character-drawing 
in  the  Cyroj^cedia.  In  this  respect  there  is  the  same  difi'erence 
between  the  Anabasis  and  the  CyrojJcedia  as  in  general  power 
there  is  between  the  Anabasis  and  the  Hellenics.  Keen  obser- 
vation Xenophon  possessed,  as  the  Anabasis  shows;  but  con- 
structive power  he  possessed  only  in  an  inferior  degree,  as  ia 
shown  by  the  Hellenics ;  and  the  same  thing  is  noticeable  in  the 
character-drawing  of  the  Anabasis  and  the  Cyropcedia.  In  the 
former  work  the  characters  of  the  generals  are  drawn  excellently 
and  with  obvious  accuracy  and  truth.     In  the  Cyropcedia,  when 


history:  xenophon.  359 

XcnopliDu  has  to  construct  characters,  he  is  far  less  s  iccossful. 
The  lights  are  too  high  and  the  shadows  too  deep  :  the  good 
characters  are  too  good — Cyrus  possesses  wholly  superhuman 
powers — -and  the  bad  too  bad. 

The  other  works  belonging  to  the  historical  group  are  the 
Agesilaus,  a  panegyric  of  the  Spartan  king  of  that  name  under 
whom  Xenophon  served ;  the  Constitution  of  Sparta,  an  undis- 
criminating  eulogy  of  the  institutions  popularly  ascribed  to 
Lycurgus ;  On  Revenues,  the  proposal  of  a  policy  designed  to 
increase  the  revenues  of  Athens  ;  the  Constitution  of  Athens, 
the  production  of  an  oligarch,  composed  probably  before  B.C. 
413,  and  not  by  Xenophon ;  and  the  Hiero,  a  fictitious  dialogue 
represented  as  having  taken  place  between  Hiero  the  tyrant  of 
Syracuse  and  Simonides  the  lyric  poet,  on  the  vulgar  fallacy 
that  monarchy  brings  happiness  to  the  monarch.  The  miscel- 
laneous group  of  Xenophon's  works,  which  may  here  be  men- 
tioned before  we  proceed  to  the  philosophical  works,  consists  of 
the  treatises  On  Riding,  the  Duties  of  a  Cavalry  General,  and 
the  interesting  work  On  Hunting. 

The  philosophical  works  consist  of  the  Memorabilia,  the 
Symposium,  the  (Economicus,  and  the  Apology,  of  which  the  last 
is  generally  admitted  not  to  be  the  work  of  Xenophon,  With 
regard  to  the  others,  they  are  connected  together  not  only  by  the 
fact  that  in  each  Socrates  is  the  leading  tigure,  but  also  because 
they  have  one  common  object,  namely,  to  defend  Socrates' 
memory  from  the  misunderstandings  and  misrepresentations  to 
which  the  philosopher  had  himself  fallen  a  victim.  Socrates 
had  been  condemned  to  death  in  Athens  in  B.C.  399,  before 
Xenophon  had  yet  returned  from  Asia  Minor,  and  the  composi- 
tion of  the  philosophical  works  in  all  probability  must  be  placed 
later  than  that  date.  During  the  life  of  Socrates  the  Athenians 
were  generally  incapaLle  of  understanding  him,  as  we  may  fairly 
infer  from  the  ludicrous  misrepresentations  of  Aristophanes ; 
and  after  his  death  misrepresentations  still  continued  to  be  put 
forward,  even  by  persons  having,  or  professing  to  have,  some 
tincture  of  philosophy  ;  as,  for  instance,  the  Sophist  Polycrates. 
Xenophon,  therefore,  who  had  been  intimately  acquainted  with 
Socrates,  and  in  whom  Socrates  had  inspired  the  greatest  affec- 
tion and  admiration,  undertook  to  give  to  the  world  a  true 
image  of  the  man  and  to  vindicate  the  morality  of  his  teach- 
ing and  the  nobility  of  his  character.  With  this  purpose  he 
wrote  memoirs  of  Socrates,  the  Memorabilia,  in  which  he  has  re- 
corded conversations  between  Socrates  and  various  Athenians  on 
various  subjects.     Most  of  these  conversations  Xenophon  him 


360  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

»elf  seems  to  have  heard ;  some,  he  says,  he  Is  repoiting  at 
second-hand.  In  all  cases,  however,  the  object  of  Xenophon  ia 
to  defend  Socrates'  memory  by  simply  showing  what  Socrates 
was ;  and  his  conviction  rightly  was  that  Socrates'  life  was  hia 
best  defence. 

In  artistic  merit  the  three  philosophical  works  of  Xenophon 
differ  considerably.  The  dialogues  which  make  up  the  Memo- 
rabilia are  disjointed ;  they  have  no  unity  beyond  the  fact  that 
Socrates  figures  in  all,  and  they  do  not  give  a  complete  repre- 
sentation of  the  character  of  Socrates.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  CEconomicus,  which  is  a  treatise  on  the  duties  of  a  house- 
holder, possesses  all  the  unity  which  the  subject  admits  of,  and 
shows  signs  of  a  plan  designed  with  clearness  and  coherency, 
which,  allowing  for  corruptions  and  interpolations,  is  satisfactorily 
carried  out.  It  is  further  justly  celebrated  as  containing  the 
brightest  picture  of  the  relations  between  man  and  wife  in 
Greece  to  be  found  in  Greek  literature.  But  in  artistic  merit 
both  the  Memorabilia  and  the  CEconomicus  fall  short  of  the 
excellence  of  the  Symposimn.  The  scene  of  the  dialogue  in 
this  work  is  laid  at  an  entertainment — whence  the  name — given 
by  Callias  in  celebration  of  the  victory  of  Autolycus  in  the 
Pancratium  ;  and  while  the  description  of  the  scene  is  remark- 
ably graceful,  the  manner  in  which  the  dialogue  is  introduced 
and  the  entertainment  at  length  brought  to  a  close,  affords  an 
example  of  dramatic  unity  not  to  be  found  in  the  other  works. 
The  resemblance  of  this  dialogue  to  that  of  Plato's  of  the  same 
name,  and  the  differences,  have  given  rise  to  much  difficulty  and 
many  conjectures.  First  there  is  the  difficulty  of  determining 
which  work  was  written  first,  and  then  determining  with  what 
object  the  later  work  was  composed.  It  has  been  supposed  that 
Xenophon  first  wrote  his  work  and  then  Plato  composed  hi? 
Symposium  as  a  criticism  of  Xenophon's  and  an  attack  on  ita 
author.  But  as  there  are  no  other  traces  of  hostility  between 
these  two  pupils  of  one  master,  this  theory  may  be  rejected.  If 
we  suppose  that  Xenophon's  work  was  the  earlier,  we  may 
indeed  say  that  Plato  in  his  Symposium  stated  his  views  with- 
out any  intention  of  implying  a  criticism  on  those  of  Xenophon, 
but  this  we  can  only  do  by  closing  our  eyes  to  many  of  the 
points  of  diflference.  Further,  there  still  remains  the  question 
whether  Xenophon's  work  was  the  earlier ;  and,  in  the  absenca 
of  external  data  for  dating  the  two  compositions,  we  are  thrown 
on  to  internal  evidence,  which  seems  to  point  to  an  acquaintance 
on  Xenophon's  part  not  only  with  the  Symposium  of  Plato,  but 
also  with  the  Phoedrus.     It  is,  however,  hard  to  believe  that 


fflSTORY:   XENOPHON.  36 1 

Xenophon  did  possess  this  acquaintance  with  Plato's  works, 
and  the  suspicion  is  therefore  aroused  that  the  Symposium 
which  goes  under  the  name  of  Xenophon  is  not  a  genuine 
work 

Finally,  the  two  Symposiums  lead  to  a  question  which,  though 
it  scarcely  properly  belongs  to  the  sphere  of  this  book,  may  on 
account  of  its  interest  be  briefly  alluded  to  here.  It  is  whether 
Plato  or  Xenoplion  reproduces  Socrates  the  more  faithfully. 
On  the  one  hand,  Xenophon  was  no  philosopher,  and  therefore, 
it  is  argued,  Avas  incapable  of  fully  understanding  Socratee ; 
while  Plato's  genius  was  in  accord  with  that  of  Socrates  and 
capable  of  reflecting  it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  said  that 
Xenophon's  very  want  of  philosophical  genius  is  a  guarantee 
that  he  has  transmitted  to  us  a  faithful  image  of  Socrates; 
while  Plato  has  necessarily  invested  the  teaching  of  Socrates 
with  the  hues  of  his  own  genius.  On  these  conflicting  views 
we  may  remark,  that  if  the  Memorabilia  were  reports  of  Socrates' 
conversation  made  at  the  time  by  Xenophon,  we  might  credit 
Xenophon's  account  of  Socrates  with  greater  accuracy  than  that 
of  Plato.  If  even  Xenophon,  composing  his  philosophical  works 
many  years  after  the  death  of  Socrates,  had  relied  purely  on  his 
memory  for  the  conversations  which  he  professes  to  report,  we 
might  believe  that  the  treacherousness  of  memory  was  the  only 
impediment  to  our  believing  in  the  superior  accuracy  of  Xeno- 
phon. But  the  CEconomicus  suffices  to  show  that  in  Xenophon 
we  have  not  to  do  merely  with  a  writer  striving  to  give  an 
exact  account  of  what  he  has  heard,  but  Avith  a  writer  who  is 
giving  the  general  impression  made  on  him  by  certain  scenes. 
In  the  CEconomicus  we  find  dissertations  on  Persian  matters  put 
into  the  mouth  of  Socrates,  which  are  much  more  probably  the 
result  of  Xenophon's  own  experience  than  the  utterance  of 
Socrates  ;  while  the  fact  that  in  the  same  work  Xenophon  pro- 
fesses to  have  heard  a  conversation  between  Socrates  and  Crito- 
bulus  which  he  can  scarcely  have  been  present  at,  seems  to  show 
that  he  allowed  himself  considerable  license  in  his  personal 
recollections  of  Socrates.  In  fine,  if  we  have  to  judge  whether 
the  impression  made  on  Xenophon  by  Socrates'  life  and  charac- 
ter was  or  was  not  more  like  the  reality  than  that  made  on 
Plato,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  we  must  prefer  Plato.  In 
Plato  we  have  indeed  something  more  than  Socrates,  but  in 
Xenophon  we  have  considerably  less. 


362  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATUBB. 


CHAPTER  V. 

OTHER     HISTORIANS. 

Ctesias  of  Cnidus  in  Caria  was  a  contemporary  of  Xenophtn. 
He  was  a  physician  by  profession,  and  belonged  to  the  family 
of  the  Asclepiadae.  In  b.c.  315  he  became  attached  as  court-phy- 
sician to  the  Persian  king  Artaxerxes  Mnemon,  and  remained  in 
that  capacity  for  seventeen  years  in  Persia,  when  he  returned 
to  Greece  and  settled  in  Sparta.  His  long  residence  in  Persia 
inspired  him  Avith  the  idea  and  afforded  him  the  opportunity  of 
writing  a  history  of  Persia.  This  work,  the  Persica,  consisted 
of  twenty-three  books.  The  first  three  books  dealt  with  the 
Assyrian  monarchy  ;  the  next  three  with  the  Medes  ;  the  next 
seven  related  tlie  foundation  of  the  Persian  empire  down  to  the 
time  of  Xerxes,  whilst  the  remaining  books  brought  down  the 
history  to  the  time  of  Ctesias  himself.  This  work  has  not  sur- 
vived to  our  times,  but  Diodorus  Siculus  has  preserved  the 
substance  of  much  of  the  Assyrian  and  Median  portion  of  the 
history;  while  other  quotations  from  the  Persica  have  been 
made  by  Photius,  Athenseus,  and  Plutarch.  In  addition  to  the 
Persica,  Ctesias  also  wrote  an  Indica,  in  which  he  gathered 
together  all  the  legends  and  information  he  could  obtain  in 
Persia  about  India.  This  work  survived  certainly  till  the  time 
of  Nero,  but  has  only  come  down  to  us  in  an  abridgment. 

The  historical  credibility  of  Ctesias  has  an  interest  for  us, 
even  though  we  do  not  possess  his  works,  because  not  only  did 
his  statements  conflict  with  those  of  Herodotus,  but  he  very 
emphatically  accused  Herodotus  of  falsity.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  Ctesias  had  much  better  materials  for  an  Oriental 
history  than  had  Herodotus.  He  not  only  lived  for  seventeen 
years  among  the  Persians,  but  he  spoke  their  language  and  had 
access  to  the  royal  archives.  Even  with  our  fragmentary  ac- 
quaintance with  his  works,  we  can  see  that,  in  consequence  of 
his  superior  opportunities,  his  work  was,  as  history,  in  one  respect 
superior  to  that  of  Herodotus.  Whereas  Herodotus  conceives 
Oriental  history  from  a  wholly  Greek  point  of  view,  assigning 
Greek  customs,  modes  of  thought,  and  motives  to  the  Medes 
and  Persians  ;  Ctesias,  on  the  other  hand,  owing  to  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Persian  life  and  his  access  to  Persian  documents, 
thoroughly  realised  the  Persian  view  of  life,  and  was  at  least 
free  from  the  error  of  ascribing  manners  and  motives  to  the 
PersiauB  which  were  quite  alien  to  them.     But  credibility  in  a 


HISTOKY:    other  HISTORTANS.  363 

historian  requires  something  more  than  the  opportunity  of  using 
good  materials.  The  historian  must  be  honest  and  capable. 
Whether  Ctesias  was  capable,  we  have  no  direct  means  of  ascer- 
taining, but  it  is  not  probable  that  he  was  in  advance  of  his  age 
in  the  investigation  of  historical  truth,  or  that  he  could  distin- 
guish between  good  and  bad  evidence  for  events  of  remote  anti- 
quity. His  honesty  is  open  to  more  serious  doubts.  His  Indica 
was  generally  regarded  in  antiquity  as  abounding  in  falsehoods; 
and,  further,  he  seems  to  have  represented  himself  as  engagec" 
in  a  diplomatic  character  after  the  battle  of  Cunaxa,  which,  as 
far  as  we  can  judge,  was  not  the  case.  This  inclination  to  ex- 
aggerate his  own  importance  at  the  expense  of  the  truth  pro- 
bably receives  another  exemplification  in  his  eagerness  to  attract 
attention  to  himself  by  loudly  calling  Herodotus  a  liar. 

A  loss  much  more  to  be  regretted  than  the  disappearance  of 
Ctesias'  works  is  that  of  Theopompus'  histories.  Theopompua 
■was  born  of  good  family  in  Chios  about  B.C.  380.  At  an  early 
age  he  shared  the  exile  of  his  father,  who  was  banished  from 
Chios  because  of  his  sympathy  or  his  intrigues  witli  the  Lace- 
daemonians. This,  however,  had  no  ill  effect  upon  the  educa- 
tion of  Theopompus,  who  became  the  most  distinguished  pupil 
of  the  celebrated  orator  Isocrates  at  Athens.  After  this  Theo- 
pompus made  extensive  travels,  and  he  himself  said  that  there 
was  no  Pan-Hellenic  festival  and  no  important  town  in  M'hicli 
he  had  not  delivered  a  speech  and  left  behind  him  a  reputation. 
About  B.C.  350  he  won  the  prize  which  was  offered  for  orators 
by  the  Carian  queen  Artemisia  in  honour  of  her  deceased  hus- 
band Mausolus.  He  was  eventually  restored  to  his  native  Chios, 
thanks  to  Alexander  of  Macedon,  and  there  led  the  Macedonian 
party.  When,  however,  the  anti-jNIacedonian  party  gained  the 
upper  hand  he  was  forced  to  flee,  and,  after  seeking  a  refuge  in 
vain  in  various  Greek  towns,  he  found  shelter  in  Eg}  pt.  The 
date,  place,  and  manner  of  his  death  are  unknown. 

Theopompus  was  a  prolific  writer.  In  addition  to  numerous 
epideictic  speeches,  he  composed  a  Hellenica  in  twelve  books, 
and  a  Plnlippica  in  fifty-eight.  His  history  of  Greece  covered 
the  period  from  B.C.  411,  at  which  the  history  of  Thucydides 
ceases,  to  the  sea-fight  of  Cnidus  in  B.C.  394.  His  Philippica 
was  a  history  of  Greece  during  the  reign  of  Philip  of  Macedonia, 
B.C.  360  to  B.C.  336.  The  enormous  extent  of  the  latter  is 
accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  it  was  full  of  long  episodes,  in 
■which  not  even  the  name  of  Philip  occurred.  Indeed,  when 
the  later  Philip  excluded  extraneous  matter  of  this  kind  from 
the  work,   it  was  found  that  of  the  fifty-eight  books  of  the 


364  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Philippica  only  sixteen  were  left  relating  to  Philip.  Tliis  lielp3 
us  to  understand  the  remark  made  hy  Isccrates  with  regard  to 
his  two  pupils  Theopompus  and  Ephorus,  that  the  latter  needed 
the  spur,  the  former  the  rein.  The  historical  work  of  Theo- 
pompus seems  to  have  been  marked  by  great  impartiality  and 
considerable  power.  He  was  not  blind  either  to  the  merits  01 
the  faults  of  Philip,  and  he  brought  both  into  strong  relief. 
His  criticism  of  the  Athenians  of  his  time  is  severe  :  the  young 
men  devoted  themselves  to  hetserae  and  flute-players,  the  older 
men  to  dicing,  and  the  whole  population  to  festivals  and  feast- 
ing rather  than  to  the  affairs  of  the  state.  He  seems  to  have 
had  the  power  of  psychological  analysis  and  of  divining  motives, 
especially  of  the  less  creditable  kind.  He  had  strong  aristo- 
cratical  tendencies,  but  was  not  prevented  by  them  from  doing 
justice  to  the  greatness  of  Pericles ;  and  although  in  some  cases 
personal  prejudice  seems  to  have  had  undue  but  not  unnatural 
weight  with  him,  he  seems  to  have  been  honourably  distin- 
guished both  by  the  desire  and  the  capacity  to  tell  the  truth. 
From  Thucydides  he  differed  in  two  important  respects;  he 
wrote  much  more  in  quantity,  and  consequently  much  less  care- 
fully ;  and  he  was  a  purely  literary,  not  a  practical  man,  as  was 
shown  by  his  descriptions  of  battles,  which  not  unfrequently, 
when  compared  with  the  localities  in  which  the  battles  actually 
took  place,  were  seen  to  be  quite  impossible. 

Ephorus,  the  pupil  of  Isocrates  who  needed  the  spur,  also 
wrote  a  history  in  thirty  books,  from  the  return  of  the  Hera- 
clidse  to  the  siege  of  Perinthus,  B.C.  341,  which  was  continued 
by  his  son  Demophilus.  Ephorus  was  born  in  the  little  town 
of  Cyme  in  JEolis,  probably  about  B.C.  380.  He  was  sent  by 
his  father  to  Athens  to  be  educated  as  an  orator  and  a  practical 
statesman  under  Isocrates  ;  but  when  he  had  gone  through  the 
ordinary  course  of  Isocrates,  he  had  made  such  little  way  that 
his  father  paid  a  second  fee  of  a  thousand  drachmae,  and  had 
him  put  through  the  course  again.  Even  then  he  was  none  the 
better  fitted  for  practical  life,  although  he  had  made  advance 
enough  to  win  the  crown  which  Isocrates  offered  every  month 
to  his  most  successful  pupil.  Accordingly,  being  possessed  of 
independent  means,  he  devoted  himself,  on  the  advice  of  Iso- 
crates, to  writing  history.  Although  he  seems  to  have  been 
justly  ranked  in  antiquity  as  inferior  to  Theopompus,  his  con- 
ception of  history  and  of  the  methods  of  historical  investiga- 
tion shows  a  distinct  advance  on  his  predecessors  who  had 
devoted  themselves  to  the  history  of  remute  times.  He  was 
the  first  author  to  compose  a  universal  history.     He  seems  to 


fflSTORY  :    OTHER  HISTORIANS.  365 

have  recognised  in  theory  the  distinction  between  mythical  and 
historical  times,  though  in  practice  he  failed  always  to  observe 
the  distinction,  much  as  in  the  same  way  he  wrote  cm  style, 
though  not  in  good  style.  In  selecting  his  authorities  for 
ancient  history,  he  seems  to  have  recognised  the  necessity  of 
obtaining  contemporary  evidence  wherever  possible,  and  with 
this  object  he  quoted  verses  of  Tyrtaeus  and  Alcman,  and 
utilised  inscriptions.  But  even  here  he  failed  in  discretion. 
For  the  time  of  Pericles  he  took  as  his  authorities  the  comic 
poets,  who  were,  indeed,  contemporary,  but  not  trustworthy. 
Finally,  we  seem  to  find  the  measure  of  the  man — an  amiable 
man  indeed — in  what  Strabo  tells  us :  his  affection  for  his  little 
native  town  was  unbounded,  and  at  the  close  of  each  section  of 
his  history  he  always  remarks,  "  during  this  period  the  Cymaeans 
remained  quiet." 

Simonides  of  Cos,  according  to  Suidas,  lived  before  the  Pelo- 
ponnesian  war,  and  wrote  a  Genealogy,  apparently  mythical, 
in  four  books.  Herodorus  of  Heraclea  was  a  contemporary  of 
Socrates.  He  seems  to  have  endeavoured  to  extract  history 
from  epic  poems  which  have  not  survived  to  our  time,  and  to 
have  written  works  on  Heracles  and  the  Argonauts,  in  which 
he  treated  geographical  and  chronological  questions  at  length. 
Ion,  the  dramatic  poet,  is  said  to  have  written,  in  addition  to 
the  Epidemice,  a  work  on  the  colonisation  of  Chios.  Stesim- 
brotus  of  Thasos,  a  contemporary  of  Pericles,  lived  and  taught 
at  Athens.  He  spent  much  labour  on  explaining  Homer  alle- 
gorically,  and  one  of  his  pupils,  Antimachus,  seems  to  have 
been  urged  by  his  example  to  undertake  the  task  of  editing 
Homer.  His  work  on  Themistocles,  Thucydides,  and  Pericles, 
seems  to  have  been  not  so  much  history  as  a  violent  political 
attack  upon  those  politicians,  and  quite  devoid  of  any  value  for 
purposes  of  history.  Hippias  the  Elean,  a  learned  Sophist,  made 
a  List  of  Victors  in  the  Olympian  Games.  Anaximander  of 
Miletus,  not  to  be  confused  with  the  philosopher,  was  a  con- 
temporary of  Ctesias,  and  wrote  a  mythical  history  entitled  the 
Heroologia.  Critias,  the  chief  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  not  only 
was  an  orator,  a  philosopher,  a  dramatist,  and  a  writer  of  politi- 
cal elegy,  but  also  wrote  on  the  Constitution  of  Sparta,  the 
Constitution  of  Thessaly,  and,  more  doubtful,  on  the  Constitu- 
tion of  Athens.  Sophaenetus  of  Stymphalus  wrote  an  account 
of  the  expedition  of  Cyrus  entitled  the  Anabasis,  in  which  he 
had  himself  taken  part.  Cratippus  wrote  a  continuation  of 
Thucydides'  history,  covering  the  same  period  as  Theopomitus 
in   his  Hellenica  dealt  with.     Aristippus  of  Cyrene  wrote  a 


366  fflSTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

History  of  Africa.  A  History  of  Sicily  was  ■written  by  Hermiai 
of  Methymna ;  histories  of  Greece  by  Dionysodorus,  a  Boeotian, 
and  by  Anaxis,  also  a  Boeotian  ;  a  History  of  Amphipolis  and  of 
Greece  from  the  earliest  times  to  the  death  of  Philip  by  Zoilu9 
the  Homeromastix ;  a  History  of  the  Sacred  War  by  Cephiso 
dorus  ;  a  History  of  Africa  by  Theochrestus  ;  histories  of  Persia 
by  Heraclides  of  Cyme  and  by  Dino  ;  a  History  of  Egypt  by 
Aristagoras  of  Miletus,  who  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  either 
the  author  of  the  Ionic  revolt  or  the  comic  poet  of  that  name ; 
while  Dionysius  the  elder,  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  and  Theocritus 
of  Chios,  a  Sophist,  are  also  mentioned  as  historians.  A  rela- 
tion by  marriage  of  Dionysius  the  elder  was  Philistus  of  Syra- 
cuse. Although  an  adherent  of  tyranny,  he  was  banished  by 
Dionysius,  and  in  exile  he  composed  his  History  of  Sicily  in 
seven  books,  which  began  a  century  before  the  Trojan  war,  and 
came  down  to  the  capture  of  Agrigentum  in  B.C.  406,  thus 
including  the  reign  of  the  elder  Dionysius.  He  was  recalled 
from  exile  by  the  younger  Dionysius,  and  began  a  history  of 
his  reign,  which,  however,  he  did  not  live  to  complete.  The 
opinion  of  antiquity  was  adverse  to  Philistus,  who  is  spoken  of 
as  a  petty  sycophant,  who  wrote  his  history  to  flatter  Dionysius 
and  obtain  a  revocation  of  his  sentence  of  exile.  But,  in  accept- 
ing this  verdict,  we  must  allow  for  the  fact  that  its  unfavourable 
character  was  probably  due  in  part  to  the  exaggerations  of 
Timaeus,  a  later  historian.  Philistus  seems  to  have  imitated 
Thucydides — according  to  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  he  carried 
his  imitation  so  far  as  to  leave  his  work  incomplete ! — and  to 
have  plagiarised  from  his  account  of  the  Sicilian  expedition. 
The  uncompleted  history  of  Philistus  was  continued  by  Athanis 
(or  Athanas)  of  Syracuse.  Other  writers  of  Syracusan  history 
were  Antandros  and  Pallias.  Here,  finally,  we  may  mention 
.^neas,  surnamed  the  Tactician,  who  wrote  on  Strategics,  a  work 
in  several  books,  of  which  one  only,  on  siege  defence,  has  come 
down  to  us.  Its  literary  worth  is  of  the  slightest.  The  devia- 
tions from  the  best  Attic,  which  are  a  feature  of  Xenophoa'i 
style,  are  carried  by  i£neas  to  the  point  of  barbarism. 


BOOK    II. 

ORATORY, 


CHAPTER  L 

THB   BEGmNINGS   OP  RHETORIC   AND   THE   FIRST   LOGOGRAPHBBa 

Eloquence  at  all  times  existed  among  the  Greeks,  but  of 
oratory  we  find  no  traces  until  the  time  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war.  In  Homer  eloquence  ranks  as  high  as  doughty  deeds  ;  ^ 
Nestor,^  Odysseus,^  and  Menelaus  have  each  his  own  style,  dis- 
tinguished and  characterised  in  a  manner  which  shows  the 
existence  and  appreciation  of  eloquence  in  the  earliest  times.* 
Most  of  the  tyrants  in  the  various  cities  of  Greece  owed  th? 
power  they  usurped  in  no  small  degree  to  the  eloquence  which 
enabled  them  to  gain  ascendancy  over  the  people,  and  the  exist- 
ence of  such  proper  names  as  Pythagoras,  Euagoras,  Protagoras, 
&c. — all  implying  abilities  in  speaking — shows  the  value  com- 
monly set  upon  a  quality  so  useful  in  political  life.  Even  with- 
out the  express  testimony  of  Thucydides,^  we  should  have  no 
hesitation  in  ascribing  the  achievements  of  Themistocles  to  his 
powers  of  eloquence  ;  and  the  thunders  of  Pericles,  though  their 
echoes  reach  our  ears  only  in  a  few  phrases  which  Aristotle 
has  preserved,  are  testified  to  by  both  the  historian  and  the 
comedians  ^  of  his  time. 

In  all  these  cases,  however,  the  triumphs  of  eloquence  were 
due  rather  to  matter  than  manner.  It  was  the  force  of  Themis- 
tocles' genius  and  the  comprehensive  grasp  of  Pericles'  mind  that 
influenced  their  audience  :  whatever  of  charm  there  was  in  their 
speeches,  though  not  without  efi"ect  upon  their  hearers,  was 

^  II.  ix.  443.  '^  II.  i.  248.  •  II.  iii.  212. 

*  For  an  explicit  recognition  of  the  power  of  eloquence,  cf.  Od,  viii.  167. 
^  i.  138  :  Kai  a  fiev  iiera  xetpas  ^x"*  f^i  k^tfyrjaaadai  616%  re, 

*  Arist.  Ach.  530  :  UepiKKeris  oiXvuwios  fjarpairT  i^pivra  ^vveKLKO.  ttjp 
EXXdSa, 


368  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

probably  not  premeditated  or  deliberately  aimed  at  by  the 
speakers.  Speech  is  an  instrument  for  the  communication  of 
ideas  and  feelings,  which  has  to  be  used  for  some  considerable 
time  before  the  instrument  itself  becomes  an  object  of  attention, 
and  before  its  capacities  are  realised,  improvements  added  or 
beauty  consciously  imparted  to  it.  It  is  only  when  men  have 
come  to  recognise  that  the  end  at  which  eloquence  aims  can  be 
better  attained  when  aided  by  art,  that  native  and  untutored 
eloquence  becomes  finished  oratory. 

For  the  development  of  eloquence  the  first  requisite  is 
freedom  of  speech.  Under  an  Asiatic  despotism  there  is  no 
public  speaking  :  in  a  Homeric  aristocracy  there  was  lacking 
the  reaction  of  audience  on  speaker,  which  is  essential  to 
eloquence.  It  is  only  when  a  free  citizen  must  rely  on  words 
to  influence  or  to  guide  his  fellow-citizens  that  eloquence  can 
grow.  In  the  next  place,  when  the  eloquence  which  is  the 
fruit  of  political  freedom  has  been  called  into  existence,  its 
further  development  is  conditioned  by  the  general  culture  of 
the  time.  The  lower  the  level  of  education  in  the  audience, 
the  lower  the  quality  of  eloquence  capable  of  being  used 
with  effect.  When,  however,  in  consequence  of  the  spread 
of  culture,  the  general  body  of  citizens  becomes  more  critical, 
eloquence,  to  efi"ect  its  object,  must  rise  in  quality.  The  third 
condition  on  which  the  rise  of  oratory  depends  is  the  conception 
of  the  possibilities  of  prose  composition.  Poetry  is  the  first 
form  which  a  literature  takes,  and,  owing  to  the  action  of 
"  the  cake  of  custom,"  it  is  only  when  poetry  has  run  most  of 
its  course  that  the  possibility  dawns  on  men  of  investing  prose 
with  literary  merit. 

We  now  are  in  a  position  to  recognise  that,  although  previ- 
ously eloquence  had  existed  in  many  Greeks  as  a  faculty  and  a 
gift,  it  was  not  until  the  concurrence  of  the  conditions  we  have 
enumerated  that  oratory  was  possible  as  an  art.  At  Athens 
the  political  freedom  of  speech  which  is  the  first  requisite  for 
the  growth  of  eloquence  followed  the  Persian  wars  ;  and  the 
Athenians  had  not  long  enjoyed  this  condition  before  the 
Sophists  by  their  encyclopaedic  knowledge  and  their  systematic 
instruction  brought  about  the  second  requisite,  that  of  an 
elevation  of  the  standard  of  general  culture.  At  the  same 
time,  too,  and  indirectly  owing  to  the  labours  of  the  Sophists, 
history,  in  the  shape  of  Herodotus'  work,  demonstrated  by 
example  the  possibility  of  literary  prose. 

Among  the  Sophists  mention  must  be  made  of  Protagoras, 
who  specially  exercised  some  influence  on  the  development  of 


oratory:  the  beginnings  of  rhetoric.        569 

oratciry.  Protagoras  of  Abdera  (b.o.  485-415)  offered  the  youth 
of  Athens  an  education  of  a  general  description  which  should 
fit  them  for  all  the  requirements  of  life ;  and  public  speaking, 
being  one  of  the  chief  requirements  of  life  at  Athens,  was 
naturally  included  in  this  education.  By  means  of  his  dialectic 
he  professed  to  enable  his  pupils,  without  being  geometers,  to 
defeat  a  geometer  in  argument,  and  generally  to  make  the 
weaker  argument  victorious.^  It  is  important  also  to  notice 
that  Protagoras  composed  "  common-places "  ^  of  general  applica- 
bility, which  he  made  his  pupils  learn  and  introduce  into  their 
speeches. 

But  while  the  Sophists  from  the  East  were  either  directly, 
as  Protagoras,  or  indirectly,  as  Prodicus  and  Hippias,  preparing 
the  ground  at  Athens,  the  seeds  of  oratory  were  being  sown 
in  the  West ;  for  although  Athens  was  the  eventual  home  of 
Hellenic  oratory,  she  was  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  art  out- 
stripped by  the  colonies.  The  eloquence  of  Themistocles  was 
practised  and  that  of  Pericles  was  prepared,  while  the  pupils 
of  the  Sophists  committed  portions  of  their  speech  to  memory 
before  proceeding  to  deliver  it,  but  in  all  these  cases  method 
was  wanting  and  theory  was  unknown.  It  was  in  Sicily  that 
the  first  attempts  were  made  to  provide  a  theory  of  rhetoric. 
The  Sicilians  had  the  reputation  of  being  a  controversial 
people,^  and  it  was  from  the  practical  needs  of  the  time  that 
the  theory  of  rhetoric  was  wrought  out.*  When  the  tyrant 
Thrasybulus  was  overthrown  in  Syracuse  and  a  democracy  was 
established,  innumerable  lawsuits  for  the  restitution  of  pro- 
perty, alleged  to  have  been  violently  taken  by  the  tyrant  and 
his  creatures  from  the  lawful  owners,  were  instituted,  and  the 
practical  necessity  of  defending  or  regaining  one's  own  by 
speaking  before  a  democratic  court  of  law  brought  into  pro- 
minence the  advantage  of  knowing  how  to  make  an  intelligible 
and  effective  speech.  Thus,  to  meet  the  needs  of  those  who 
were  or  might  be  forced  into  law,  Corax  framed  a  rudimentary 
theory  of  rhetoric.^  This  consisted  of  little  more  than  dia 
tinguishing  and  stating  the  parts  of  which  a  speech  should 
consist — the  introduction,  exposition,  arguments,  subsidiary 
remarks,  and   peroration — and  bringing  into  prominence   the 

^  TOP  ■fjTTO}  \6yov  KpelrTW  iroieiv,  *  rdiroi,  loci. 

3  Cic.  Brut.  46  (quoting  from  Aristotle) :  quod  esset  acuta  ilia  gena  et  con* 
troversa  natura. 

*  Ibid.  Itaque  ait  Aristoteles  cum  sublatis  in  Sicilia  tyrannis  res  privatat 
longo  intervallo  iudiciis  repeterentur,  tum  primum  e  controversia  natam 
artem  et  prsecepta  Coracem  et  Tisiam  conscripsisse. 

a  ▲ 


37©  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE, 

argument  from  probability. ^  This  argument,  which  was  still 
further  developed  by  Tisias,  the  pupil  of  Corax,  whether  used 
to  supplement  or  to  take  the  place  of  evidence,  consisted,  as  its 
name  implies,  in  demonstrating  how  probable,  a  priori^  it  was 
that  what  the  speaker  alleged  really  happened. 

The  law-courts  of  Athens,-  though  for  different  reasons,  were 
as  busy  as  those  of  Syracuse,  and  thus,  as  the  conditions  of  the 
two  places  were  similar,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  readily  the  rhetoric 
of  Sicily  was  transferred  to  the  soil  of  Attica.  This  transfer- 
rence  was  not  effected  by  Gorgias,  as  is  sometimes  said,  although 
the  way  for  it  was  prepared  by  him.  Sent  in  B.C.  427  by  his 
native  city,  Leontini,  to  implore  the  aid  of  Athens  against  Syra- 
cuse, Gorgias  made  a  deep  impression  on  the  Athenians  by  the 
brilliance  of  his  oratory.  Gorgias'  oratory,  however,  was  not 
based  on  the  theory  of  Corax  or  Tisias,  nor  did  it  owe  its  success 
to  this.  It  was  not  by  method  or  arrangement,  but  by  the 
mere  beauty  (as  it  was  then  considered)  of  his  diction  that 
Gorgias  gained  his  fame  and  roused  the  Athenians  to  a  sense 
of  what  was  possible  in  oratory.  Tested  by  the  standard  of 
later  oratory,  Gorgias  cannot  be  ranked  high.  As  was  natural 
at  a  time  when  prose  was  only  beginning  to  exist,  Gorgias  con- 
ceived but  inadequately  the  difference  between  it  and  poetry, 
and  consequently  foisted  into  his  prose  expressions  suited  only 
to  poetry.  His  fragments  (for  the  two  speeches,  the  Encomium 
and  the  speech  for  Palamedes  ascribed  to  him  are  of  doubtful 
authenticity)  show  much  extravagance  of  antithesis  and  paral- 
lelism, and  suffer  from  a  plethora  of  words. 

The  theory  of  rhetoric  Gorgias  did  not  teach,  and  in  point  of 
style,  in  his  endeavour  to  compensate  by  poetry  of  expression 
for  the  loss  of  the  metre  of  verse,  he  exercised  more  influence 
on  the  prose  of  Thucydides  than  on  Athenian  forensic  oratory. 

At  Athens,  as  at  Syracuse,  many  a  man  found  himself  in  the 
position  of  having  to  appear  in  a  law-court  without  being  able 
to  make  a  speech.  This  gave  rise  at  Athens  to  the  practice  of 
procuring  some  one  else  to  write  the  needful  speech,  and  then 
committing  it  to  memory.  The  men  who  wrote  these  speeches, 
and  thus  developed  the  idea  suggested  by  the  common-places  of 
Protagoras  and  Gorgias,  were  called  logographers.^  Their  im- 
portance is  twofold.    In  the  first  place,  they  raised  oratory  to  an 


''  Schol.  Plat.  PhcEdr.  p.  317,  Bekk  :  \oyoypd(l)ovi  yap  iKdXovy  ol  ^aXaiot 
TOWS  evi  fiLcOii)  X670US  ypa.(f>ovTa%  koL  iriirpcurKOVTas  airroiis  eU  diKaffr^pia,  ^-^o. 
pas  oi  Toiis  5i  iavrwv  Xeyovras. 


oratory:  the  beginnings  of  rhetoric.        371 

art ;  and  next,  they  made  it,  what  it  had  not  hitherto  been,  a 
department  of  literature. 

Both  these  results  were  due  to  the  practice,  introduced  by 
the  logographers,  of  writing  speeches.  Previously,  statesmen, 
being  concerned  only  with  the  practical  object  of  carrying  out 
their  plans,  and  not  interesting  themselves  in  developing  their 
speeches  artistically,  had  no  reason  for  writing  them  out  before- 
hand, or,  when  they  had  attained  their  object,  for  publishing 
them  subsequently.  And  even  when  the  practice  of  composing 
and  publishing  speeches  had  established  itself,  the  traditions  of 
statesmanship  were  opposed  to  a  politician's  descending  to  the 
level  of  a  Sophist  in  this  respect.  For  not  only  were  the 
Sophists  suspected  of  speaking  rather  for  effect  than  truth,  but 
they  also  received  money  for  their  services,  which  was  repug- 
nant to  Athenian  sentiment.  The  logographers,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  led  by  professional  reasons  to  write  out  the  whole 
of  a  speech  for  a  client,  and  having  done  so,  when  the  trial  was 
at  a  successful  end,  were  naturally  inclined  to  publish  the 
speech  for  the  sake  of  advertising  their  ability.  Thus  we  owe 
to  the  logographers  the  literature  of  oratory. 

The  earliest  known  logographer  is  Antiphon  of  Athens.  Of 
him  we  know  practically  little  more  than  is  told  us  in  the 
famous  chapter  of  Thucydides,^  which  gave  rise  in  antiquity  to 
the  conjecture  that  the  historian  was  a  pupil  of  the  orator. 
Born  in  the  time  of  the  Persian  wars,  rather  younger  than 
Gorgias  and  some  years  older  than  Thucydides,  Antiphon,  the 
son  of  Sophilus,  of  the  deme  of  Rhanmos,  gave  early  proof  of 
his  oligarchical  tendencies  in  politics  by  defending  the  peoples 
of  Samolhrace  and  Lindus  against  charges  as  to  the  non-pay- 
ment by  them  of  their  tribute  as  allies  to  Athens.  After  the 
defeat  of  the  Sicilian  expedition,  he  took  the  main  share  in 
establishing  the  tyranny  of  the  Four  Hundred.  On  the  failure 
of  this  revolution,  Antiphon  joined  the  extreme  oligarchs  in 
their  resolve  to  make — in  opposition  to  the  moderate  oligarchs 
— no  concessions  to  the  people,  and  departed  as  member  of  an 
embassy  to  treat  with  Sparta  for  assistance  on  any  terms  against 
the  people.  "When  he  returned  to  Athens  he  was  impeached 
before  the  council ;  was  thereupon  charged  with  treason,  con- 
demned, and  executed  (b.c.  411).^ 

1  viii,  68. 

2  The  speech  which  he  made  in  his  defence,  entitled  iv  rip  irepl  /i£Ta» 
ordaews,  and  which  has  not  come  down  to  us,  was  the  greatest  he  ever  com- 
posed, and  is  referred  to  in  the  Eudemian  Ethics,  iii.  5  :  Kal  /iSWov  Ap 
^povrlaeuv  dvrjp  fifyaKo^vxos  ri  5o(cet  ivl  ffirovdal^-  fj  TroXXots  toIs  Tvyxji- 


372  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

In  the  troubled  times  of  the  later  years  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war,  Antiphon's  is  a  dark  and  mysterious  figure.  He  was, 
according  to  Thucydides,  the  greatest  orator  of  his  day,  and  yet 
he  himself  practically  never  spoke  in  public.  His  talent  was 
so  great  as  to  be  suspicious  in  the  eves  of  the  people.  He  toiled 
for  years  in  the  darkness  and  underground  workings  of  oligar- 
chical clubs  and  secret  societies,  and  only  emerged  to  the  sur- 
face of  politics  voluntarily  when  he  could  at  last  establish  the 
tyranny  of  the  Four  Hundred.  Though  destitute  of  the  politi- 
cal morality  which  teaches  that  an  existing  constitution  should 
be  changed  only  by  legal  agitation,  faithless  to  the  oath  which 
bound  him,  as  other  citizens,  to  maintain  the  democracy  of 
Athens,  author  of  a  reign  of  terror  which  was  based  on  metho- 
dical and  wholesale  assassination,  Antiphon  is  called  a  man  of 
unsurpassed  virtue  by  Thucydides.  The  explanation  of  this  is 
that  he  was  an  oligarch  distinguished  by  two  qualities ;  he  had 
no  personal  ambition,  and  he  was  faithful  to  his  cause.  He 
worked  for  his  party  during  many  years  without  putting  him- 
self forward  for  office  or  reward,  and,  when  the  hour  of  triumph 
came,  he  did  not  abuse  it  for  personal  gain.  When  the  Four 
Hundred  fell,  he  did  not,  like  Theramenes,  desert  his  cause, 
nor,  like  his  fellow-ambassadors  to  Sparta,  fly  from  the  danger 
incurred  by  returning  to  Athens.  E^  would  sacrifice  to  Sparta 
everything  that  gave  an  Athenian  cause  to  be  proud  of  his 
country  in  order  to  destroy  the  democracy  of  Athens,  but  he 
faced  death  rather  than  betray  his  party. 

Few  as  are  the  works  of  Antiphon  which  have  come  down  to 
us  (and  although  probably  all  of  these  few  fall  within  the  ten 
years  which  follow  the  peace  of  Nicias),  they  not  ^  nly  show  us 
the  beginnings  of  Attic  prose,  but  they  also  j^ermit  us  to  see 
Attic  prose  and  Attic  oratory  in  the  process  of  development. 
As  we  have  already  said,  the  practice  of  writing  a  whole  speech 
for  another  person  to  deliver  was  but  the  extension  of  the  sys- 
tem of  composing  "  common-places,"  or  general  arguments  to  be 
inserted  in  speeches  otherwise  extemporary.  The  speeches  of 
Antiphon,  however,  were  not  only  composed  to  be  delivered  as 
wholes,  but  they  also  contain  many  common-places  repeated  in 
the  various  speeches,  and  thus  we  have  present  in  Antiphon 
both  the  old  system  of  the  rhetoricians  and  the  new  system  of 
the  logographers,  designed  to  take  the  place  of  the  old. 

Again,  one  of  the  first  tilings  that  received  attention  and 
illustiation  at  the  hands  of  the  Sicilian  rhetoricians  was  the 

rowiv,  ibairep  'AvTiipuiy  iiprj  ■wpbs  'AydOwva  KaT€\f/r](pi(rfjJvos  ttj^  droKo-^iat 
iwaiviaavTO, 


oratory:    the  BEGINNmOS  OF  RHETORIC.  373 

argument  from  general  probability ;  ^  and  here,  too,  Antiplion 
betrays  the  rudimentary  stage  in  which  his  oratory  still  is. 
His  strength  lies  mainly  in  his  treatment  of  general  probabili- 
ties, and  he  is  never  weary  of  reproducing  such  arguments  in  a 
variety  of  forms.  The  analysis  and  development  of  evidence 
could  only  come  later  In  tlie  history  of  forensic  oratory,  and 
while  this,  the  true  mode  of  procedure,  remained  in  embryo, 
general  probability  and  matter  really  foreign  to  the  point  natu- 
rally received  the  orator's  greatest  attention.  Correlated  with 
this  immaturity  is  Antiphon's  inferiority  in  the  exposition  of 
the  facts  of  his  case.  His  own  mind  and  the  sophistical  temper 
of  his  time  impelled  him  to  neglect  the  simple  business  of  nar- 
rating facts,  in  order  that  he  might  devote  himself  to  the  more 
congenial  work  of  employing  his  subtlety  in  a  priori  arguments 
and  ingenious  hypotheses. 

A  further  indication  of  immaturity  is  to  be  noticed  in  the 
absence  of  individual  ethos'^  from  the  speeches  of  Antiphon. 
His  speeches  have  an  ethos,  but  it  is  the  same  in  all.  They 
all  have  the  same  character  of  manly  simplicity  and  honest 
directness.  But  there  is  no  attempt  to  make  any  difference 
between  the  character  of  tlie  speech  put  in  the  mouth  of  the 
young  Mityleneean  who  is  defending  himself  from  the  charge  of 
having  murdered  Herodes,  and  that  of  the  speech  of  the  Athe- 
nian charged  with  the  death  of  a  choreutes,  who  had  discharged 
the  duties  of  choregus  more  than  once,  was  a  member  of  the 
Council,  and  must  therefore  have  been  of  advanced  years  and 
large  experience.  From  an  artistic  point  of  view  such  indis- 
crimination must  be  considered  a  defect,  and  from  a  practical 
point  of  view  it  is  a  still  more  serious  fault ;  for  the  practice  of 
employing  a  logographer,  though  much  adopted,  was  not  con- 
sidered very  creditable,^  and  consequently  it  would  be  a  practi- 
cal duty  of  the  logographer  to  suit  the  speech  to  the  character 
and  position  of  the  speaker  as  much  as  possible,  in  order  to 
av  )id  arousing  suspicion.  Accordingly,  in  Lysias  we  find  that 
each  speech  has  its  individual  ethos. 

These  immaturities  are  naturally  found  with  the  greatest  dis- 
tinctness in  the  Tetralogies.  These  speeches  were  composed  by 
Antiphon  as  common  forms,  and  it  has  been  conjectured  that 
they  formed  the  illustrative  part  of  a  work  by  him  on  the 
theory  ol  rhetoric ;  *  but  as  the  existence  of  such  a  work  is 

*  By  ethos  is  technically  meant  the  impression  produced  on  the  hearer  bj 
the  character  of  the  speaker,  as  revealed  in  his  speech. 
^  Plato,  Euthyd.  289D ;  Phced.  2570,  D  j  and  cf.  Ehet.  ad  Alex.  36. 


374  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

merely  conjecture,  tlie  conjecture  can  hardly  be  adopted.  The 
Tetralogies,  as  the  name  implies,  consisted  each  of  four  speeches, 
for  they  treat  of  charges  of  homicide ;  and  at  Athens  in  such 
cases  the  prosecution  spoke  first,  the  defence  replied,  the  prose- 
cution then  rejoined,  and,  finally,  the  defence  concluded  with 
another  speech. 

The  First  Tetralogy  is  based  on  the  supposition  that  an  Athe- 
nian citizen  has  been  found  killed,  and  that  another  Athenian, 
against  whom  the  deceased  was  about  to  bring  a  lawsuit,  is 
accused  of  murdering  him.  The  first  speech  for  the  prosecution 
commences  with  a  warning  that  the  defendant's  cunning  is  so 
great  as  to  make  it  difficult  to  prove  a  case  against  him.  How- 
ever, in  the  first  place,  the  death  must  have  been  the  result  of 
deliberate  murder,  for  the  facts  of  the  case  exclude  any  other 
supposition.  Thieves  would  have  taken  the  deceased's  clothes ; 
time  and  place  sliow  that  it  could  not  have  been  the  result  of  a 
quarrel :  if  it  had  been  a  drunken  fray,  his  fellow-drinkers  would 
have  come  forward  ;  and  the  deceased  could  not  have  been  killed 
in  mistake  for  some  one  else,  for  his  slave  also  was  killed.  In 
the  second  place,  the  general  probabilities  point  to  the  defendant 
- — smarting  under  previous  defeats  and  dreading  still  further 
disgrace  in  a  pending  lawsuit — as  the  man  who  committed  the 
murder.  Finally,  the  murdered  slave  recognised  him,  and  before 
dying  stated  the  fact. 

The  defendant  replies  : — If  he  is  so  cunning,  would  he 
commit  a  murder  of  which  he  was  sure  to  be  immediately 
suspected  1  However,  in  the  first  place,  the  prosecution  has 
failed  to  show  deliberate  murder,  for  thieves  might  have  been 
frightened  off  before  they  could  strip  the  deceased.  But  granted 
it  was  a  case  of  murder,  what  could  be  more  probable  than 
that  some  other  enemy  of  the  murdered  man  committed  the 
murder,  knowing  suspicion  would  fall  at  once  on  the  defen- 
dant ?  In  the  next  place,  as  to  the  slave's  evidence,  the  slave 
might  easily  be  mistaken  ;  and  if  it  is  said  that  the  slave  was 
probably  not  mistaken,  against  that  probability  must  be  set  the 
probability  that  if  the  defendant  planned  the  murder  he  would 
not  run  the  risk  of  detection  by  being  present  in  person.  As 
for  the  impending  lawsuit,  the  danger  from  it  would  be  as 
nothing  compared  with  the  danger  of  committing  such  a  murder. 
Finally,  the  defendant  appeals  to  his  services  to  the  state. 

In  its  rejoinder,  the  prosecution  reiterates  that  the  case  ia 
one  of  deliberate  murder.  If  the  thieves  were  frightened  ofi^ 
■where  are  the  people  who  frightened  them  1  The  attempt, 
moreover,  to  inculpate  some  other  enemy  of  the  murdered  man, 


ORATORY  :    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  RHETORIC.  375 

less  endangered  aud  therefore  less  open  to  suspicion,  fails,  be- 
cause those  less  in  danger  would  have  less  motive.  In  the  next 
place  the  slave's  evidence  remains  unshaken  ;  for  the  proba- 
bihty  is  that  tlie  defendant  was  alone  present,  as  he  thereby 
made  sure  that  the  deed  was  done,  and  avoided  the  danger  of 
being  betrayed  by  an  accomplice.  As  for  the  danger  of  com- 
mitting murder  being  greater  than  that  from  the  impending 
lawsuit,  the  opposite  is  the  case.  The  defendant  had  no  chance 
of  evading  the  lawsuit,  but  he  had  a  chance  of  not  being 
brought  to  trial  for  the  murder.  Again,  the  defendant  says  that 
the  knowledge  that  he  would  be  at  once  suspected  was  enough 
to  prevent  his  committing  such  a  murder.  But  if  the  fear  of 
being  suspected  was  sufficient  to  divert  him  from  the  attempt, 
how  much  more  would  it  deter  people  with  less  motive  for 
murder  ?  Finally,  his  services  to  the  state  show  his  wealth, 
not  his  innocence. 

The  defendant  replies,  first,  that  the  hypothesis  of  thieves 
still  holds  good,  for  the  passers-by,  whose  coming  frightened  ofi 
the  thieves,  would  themselves  be  afraid  of  being  found  with  two 
dead  bodies.  Secondly,  the  slave's  evidence  cannot  be  admitted : 
he  was  not  tortured,  and  as  his  approaching  death  assured  him 
that  he  could  not  be  tortured  for  falsehood,  he  naturally  gave 
the  answer  his  owners  wanted.  Finally,  the  defendant  can 
prove  an  alibi.  (This  decisive  point  is  reserved  till  now,  be- 
cause now  the  prosecution  cannot  reply.) 

In  the  Tetralogies,  although  the  case  is  framed  rather  to  suit 
the  arguments  than  the  arguments  the  case,  Antiphon  shows 
his  subtlety  and  keenness  in  argument  to  the  best  advantage ; 
but  these  speeches  also  show  forensic  oratory  in  the  process  of 
development.  Intended  as  models,  they  present  to  our  eyes  the 
intermediate  step  between  theory  and  practice.  They  naturally 
contain  no  exposition  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  for  they  are  meant 
not  for  a  jury,  but  for  the  education  of  Antiphon's  pupils,  and, 
stripped  of  everything  which  would  encumber  the  argument, 
they  lay  before  us  the  method  of  procedure  adopted  by  a 
skilful  advocate.  At  the  same  time,  as  we  have  said,  in  the 
excessive  use  of  the  argument  from  probability  and  of  gene- 
ralities, and  in  the  absence  of  any  attempt  at  individual  ethos, 
they  mark  an  immature  stage    f  forensic  oratory. 

It  is,  however,  not  only  in  the  treatment  of  the  subject- 
matter  that  the  Tetralogies  are  tentative  :  their  style  also  is 
inferior  to  the  level  attained  in  the  speeches  delivered  in  real 
trials.  Antiphon  is  traditionally  regarded  as  the  representativ  a 
of  the  severe  style  of  oratory.^     This  style  has  for  its  character 

^  aiiXTijpa.  apfiovla. 


376  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

istic  dignity  and  majesty,  not  life  and  movement,  and  it  is  not 
periodic.  These  qualities  of  the  severe  style  are  found  to  excess 
in  the  Tetralogies.  In  the  real  speeches,  Antiphon,  for  prac- 
tical purposes,  modified  the  elevated  but  stiff  style  which  he 
felt  at  liberty  to  employ  in  the  Tetralogies. 

Antiphon  is  classed  by  Dionysius  of  Halicamassus  with 
.^schylus  and  Pindar  as  representative  of  the  "  severe "  style 
generally ;  and  Antiphon  may  be  called  the  ^schylus  of  Ora- 
tory, for  the  changes  which  came  over  oratory  subsequently 
are  analogous  to  those  experienced  by  Tragedy  in  the  hands 
of  Sophocles  and  Euripides.  Moreover,  the  religious  views  of 
Antiphon,  being  of  the  same  old-fashioned  stamp  as  those  of 
j^Eschylus,  naturally  find  expression  in  terms  which,  appropriate 
as  they  were  to  the  ideas  intended  to  be  conveyed,  weie  inevit- 
ably disappearing  from  common  use  in  proportion  as  these  ideas 
themselves  were  being  left  behind  by  the  movement  of  thought. 

In  this  preference,  partly  instinctive  and  partly  deliberate,  for 
archaisms  of  language  we  have  one  of  the  elements  which  go 
to  make  up  the  elevation  and  dignity  of  the  "  severe "  style. 
Amongst  other  elements  may  be  noticed,  so  far  as  the  vocabu- 
lary of  Antiphon  is  concerned,  the  use  of  poetical  expressions. 
This,  doubtless,  was  inevitable  while  prose  was  young  and  the 
position  of  poetry  was  dominant  in  literature ;  but  in  the  em- 
ployment of  words  and  expressions,  which,  without  being  poeti- 
cal, were  yet  not  usual  in  ordinary  life,  we  have  the  indication 
of  a  conscious  endeavour  to  exalt  the  language  of  oratory  above 
that  of  ordinary  of  life.  Still  more  unmistakable  in  this  respect 
is  the  evidence  afforded  by  the  use  of  words  and  of  stiff  combi- 
nations of  words  peculiar  to  Antiphon  himself.  Tlie  traditional 
and  still  powerful  influence  of  poetry,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
responsible  for  the  ornate  epithets,  the  accumulation  of  syno- 
nyms, and  the  use  of  periphrases. 

Leaving  the  vocabulary  of  Antiphon,  we  find  that  the  severe 
style  is  conventionally  said  to  be  not  "  periodic,"  but  "  running,"  * 
being  thus  opposed  to  the  smooth  style,^  of  which  Isocrates 
is  the  representative.  In  the  "  running  "  style,  the  principal 
word  or  words  of  the  sentence  come  first,  and  then  there  follow 
the  attributes  or  qualifications  of  the  principal  word  in  a  string. 
Any  or  all  of  these  dependent  segments  may  be  cut  off,  but  the 
head  (so  to  speak)  will  still  retain  its  vitality  unimpaired.  The 
traditional  example  of  such  a  style  is  to  be  found  in  the  open- 
ing words  of  Herodotus.^     In  the  periodic  style,  however,  the 

*  elpofi^vT}  X^fij.  2  yXaipvpa  ap/jLovia. 

•  Kpoiffos  Ijv  AvSis  ftiy  yivot,  irah  5i  'AXvdrTew,  jvpawos  M  (9n<jjy  tu$ 


ORATORY  :    THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  RHETORIC.  37/ 

primiipal  or  independent  word  does  not  coma  first,  but  some 
dependent  word  :  tlius  tlie  beginning  of  the  period  presupposes 
the  end,  and  cannot  exist  without  it. 

It  would  be  incorrect  to  say  that  Antiphon  writes  in  the 
"  running  "  style,  if  by  that  it  were  meant  that  he  has  no  periods. 
No  author  writes  entirely  in  the  "  running  "  style.  Even  Hero- 
dotus, when  he  abandons  narrative  for  disquisition  on  the  causes 
or  effects  of  historical  events,  naturally  strives  after  periods. 
Much  more  does  this  happen  in  those  parts  of  Antiphon's 
speeches  which  contain  the  arguments.  This,  however,  is  not 
the  only  limitation  which  has  to  be  placed  on  the  statement 
that  Antiphon  writes  in  the  "  running  "  style.  It  is  characteristic 
of  the  periodic  style  that  the  parts  of  which  the  periods  are 
made  up  are  balanced  with  much  care  :  they  are  either  made 
equal  in  length,  or,  if  unequal,  then  the  longer  is  put  at  the  end, 
so  that  the  weight  of  the  sentence  is  thrown  forward.  Thia 
balance  of  the  parts  of  the  periods,  though  specially  distinctive 
of  Isocrates,  the  representative  of  the  smooth  style,  is  not  absent 
from  Antiphon.  The  latter  author  is  perpetually  striving  after 
antitheses,  and  in  a  long  sentence,  in  which  the  later  clauses 
(being  antithetical  and  parallel  to  the  earlier  clauses)  are  deter- 
mined in  length  and  structure  by  the  earlier  clauses,  the  result 
is  a  periodic  arrangement  of  the  strictest  kind.  Such  antithetical 
sentences  occur  so  frequently  in  Antiphon  as  to  produce  mono- 
tony, and  lead  not  rarely  to  the  insertion  of  padding  solely  for 
the  sake  of  filling  out  the  sentence  and  completing  the  rhythm. 
At  the  same  time,  in  marked  contrast  to  later  writers,  Antiphon 
often  quite  deliberately  makes  his  sentences  as  irregular  as 
possible.  It  is  this  irregularity,  and  the  absence  or  misuse  of 
connecting  particles,  that  give  to  Antiphon's  speeches  the  slow 
and  deliberate  movement  which  is  sometimes  mere  stiffness,  but 
more  often  impressive  and  majestic. 

Finally,  the  early  stage  which  Antiphon  occupies  in  the 
development  of  oratory  is  marked  by  the  absence  of  most  of 
the  "figures  of  speech"^  and  all  the  "figures  of  thought,"^ 
Under  the  "  figures  of  speech "  are  included  asyndeton,  the 
repetition  of  the  same  word  or  words  at  the  beginning  of  suc- 
cessive sentences   (anaphora),   the  assonance    of  whole    words 

ivrdi  'A\voi  iroTa/xoO.  Blass  puts  these  words  into  the  periodic  style  as 
follows  : — ^AXvaTTOv fj.it/  vl6s  fjv  Kpoicros,  yivos  MAvhbs,  tu>v  ivrbs'AXvo^  irora- 
fiov  ripawos  idvwv  {A.tt.  Bered.,  p.  122). 

Note  that  by  a  "colon  "  is  technically  meant  not  a  complete  sentence,  hut 
a  smaller  whole  capable  of  being  pronounced  in  a  single  breath.  Thus  th* 
period  just  given  includes  three  cola  marked  by  the  commas. 


27 S  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

(parechesis)  or  of  the  ends  of  words  (homoioteleuton)j  questions 
supposed  to  be  put  by  the  opposite  side  (hypophora)j  &c.  The 
"figures  of  thought"  include  irony,  aposiopesis,  feigned  pep 
plexity  (aporesis),  &c. 

In  this  respect,  as  well  as  in  point  of  style  generally  and  in 
the  treatment  of  his  subject-matter,  Antiphon  not  only  presents 
to  us  an  early  stage  of  prose  and  of  oratory,  but  also  allows  us 
to  see,  even  in  those  few  works  of  his  which  have  come  down 
to  us,  the  process  of  development  going  on.  In  the  speech 
"Against  a  Step-mother  on  a  Charge  of  Poisoning,"  if  it  is 
genuine,  we  have  Antiphon's  style  and  powers  of  argument  in 
their  most  primitive  and  least  developed  form. 

The  speech  "  On  the  Murder  of  Herodes  "  shows  him  at  his 
best.  Though  not  periodic  in  style,  the  speech  is  strengthened 
throughout  by  the  antitheses  and  parallelisms  which,  as  we  have 
said,  result  in  a  periodic  arrangement.  The  language  is  not  so 
archaic  or  so  highly  coloured  as  in  the  Tetralogies,  for  in  his 
real  speeches  Antiphon  feels  the  necessity  laid  on  the  orator  of 
being  readily  intelligible  to  his  hearers.  The  arguments  are 
lively,  and  in  general  we  may  say,  that  while  the  "  Herodes  " 
presents  to  us  the  points  peculiar  to  Antiphon  and  distinctive 
of  the  "  severe "  style  in  a  manner  which  makes  the  speech 
sufficiently  characteristic  of  the  author,  these  points  are  yet  so 
modified  as  to  meet  the  practical  demands  made  on  an  orator. 

The  speech  "  On  the  Choreutes,"  though  inferior  in  merit  to 
the  "Herodes,"  is  later  in  development.  The  language  approaches 
more  nearly  to  that  of  ordinary  life,  and  the  speech  possesses 
more  life  and  fire  than  do  the  rest.  But  although  the  more 
sparing  use  of  antitheses  makes  the  "  Choreutes  "  less  artificial, 
we  miss  to  a  large  extent  in  this  speech  the  stateliness  of 
Antiphon. 

In  conclusion,  the  merits  of  Antiphon  must  be  tested,  not  by 
comparison  with  the  orators  of  later  times,  but  by  the  standard 
of  his  own  age.  This  standard  we  have  given  to  us  in  the 
words  of  Thucydides,  a  contemporary  and  himself  the  represen- 
tative in  history,  as  was  Antiphon  in  oratory,  of  the  severe  style. 
Thucydides  says  of  Antiphon  that  his  two  merits  lay  in  the 
power  of  his  ideas  and  the  clearness  of  his  expression.  Vivacious 
or  natural  his  style  does  not  pretend  to  be,  but  to  the  clear  and 
dignified  expression  of  clever  arguments  he  did  attain  ;  and  it  ia 
in  the  success  with  which  he  realised  the  end  which  he  proposed 
to  himself  that  the  merit  of  Antiphon  as  an  artist  consists. 


ORATORY  :    ANDOCIDES  AND  LYSIAS.  379 

CHAPTER  II. 

PRACTICAL  ORATORY  :    ANDOCIDES  AND  LTSIAS. 

The  name  of  Andocides  is  associated  with  the  mutilation  of  the 
Hermse.  In  B.C.  415,  when  the  Sicilian  expedition  was  on  the 
point  of  sailing,  Athens  was  thrown  into  a  state  of  indescribable 
alarm  by  the  mutilation  of  all  the  images  of  Hermes  throughout 
the  city.  Such  a  deed  could  only  have  been  executed  by  an 
organised  body  of  men,  and  must  therefore  have  been  the  work 
of  one  of  those  secret  oligarchical  clubs  whose  object  was  the 
overthrow  of  the  democracy.  Further,  as  these  oligarchs  habi- 
tually maintained  relations  with  the  enemies  of  Athens,  a  con- 
certed attack  from  without  was  momentarily  expected,  though 
from  what  quarter  no  man  knew.  To  the  anticipation  of  these 
practical  and  immediate  dangers  were  added  in  the  minds  of  the 
Athenians  the  yet  greater  calamities  to  be  expected  from  the 
wrath  of  the  offended  gods.  From  the  age  of  Homer  to  the 
latest  times  of  the  Roman  Empire,  the  belief  held  that  if  the 
gods  of  a  city  were  tempted  or  driven  to  go  over  to  the  enemy, 
defeat  was  inevitable  ;  and  it  must  have  been  regarded  as  the 
purpose  of  the  mutilators  to  ensure  by  this  insult  to  the  gods 
the  defeat  of  the  Sicilian  expedition  and  the  ultimate  victory  of 
the  Peloponnesian  enemy. 

The  state  of  suspense  in  which  the  Athenians  were  thus  plunged 
furnished  the  conditions  favourable  to  the  appearance  of  aspi- 
rants after  notoriety,  and  the  demand  for  information  created 
the  supply.  Informers  of  various  kinds  were  soon  forthcoming 
with  tales  calculated  to  exaggerate  the  existing  alarm,  and  many 
innocent  persons  were  inculpated.  At  length  Andocides,  when 
most  of  the  real  authors  of  the  mutilation  had  escaped,  and 
when  his  father  and  other  innocent  relatives  were  along  with 
himself  in  danger  of  death,  was  prevailed  on  to  reveal  the  truth. 
According  to  his  account,  the  mutilation  was  the  wild  exploit 
of  a  club  of  young  men — the  "Mohocks"  of  the  time — to  which 
he  belonged.  Whether  Andocides  himself  actually  took  part 
in  the  proceeding  is  difficult  to  say,  but  his  revelations,  reducing 
the  affair  to  its  proper  proportions,  restored  quiet  to  the  city, 
and  thus  for  the  time  defeated  the  designs  of  Peisander  and 
other  oligarchs,  who  for  purposes  of  their  own  were  at  least  foster- 
ing the  panic. 

For  thus  interfering  with  the  plans  of  Peisander,  Andocides 
soon  paid  the  penalty ;  for  he  was  banished  by  the  action  of 


380  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

a  decree  of  Isotimides,  ostensibly  directed  generally  against 
those  who  had  committed  and  confessed  impiety,  but  really 
against  Acdocides  solely.  Having  spent  some  time  in  Cyprua 
as  a  merchant,  and  having  there  rendered  services  to  the 
democracy  of  Athens,  in  411,  unaware  of  the  overthrovr  of  the 
democracy  by  the  Four  Hundred,  he  returned  to  Athens,  and 
was  lucky  to  escape  from  the  hands  of  the  tyrants  with  his  life. 
In  410,  having  rendered  fresh  services  to  Athens,  he  made 
another  attempt  to  establish  himself  in  his  native  city.  The 
speech  which  he  at  this  time  made  "  on  his  return "  is  still 
extant.  It  was,  however,  unsuccessful,  and  Andocides  returned 
to  exile  once  more,  until  the  amnesty  of  B.c.  403  restored  him 
to  his  country. 

For  some  time  Andocides  lived  in  peace,  discharging  expen- 
sive "liturgies"  and  otherwise  serving  his  country;  but  in  B.C. 
399,  his  enemies,  reviving  the  old  tales  against  him,  charged  him 
with  impiety  and  with  breaking  the  decree  of  Isotimides,  by 
which  he  had  originally  been  banished.  In  his  defence  he 
delivered  the  speech  on  the  Mysteries,  and  was  acquitted. 

In  the  fourth  year  of  the  Corinthian  war,  B.C.  390,  he 
appears  again,  and  for  the  last  time,  to  our  view.  Sent  by  the 
Athenians  with  full  powers  to  negotiate  peace  with  Sparta,  he 
returned  nevertheless  to  Athens,  and  laid  before  the  people  the 
terms  of  the  Spartans  in  the  extant  speech  "  On  the  Peace." 

Andocides  was  not  a  rhetorician,  but  an  orator.  He  received 
no  technical  instruction  in  rhetoric  and  had  no  acquaintance 
with  the  theory  of  speaking.  His  knowledge  of  oratory  was 
perfectly  empirical,  and  such  as  could  be  picked  up  by  attend- 
ance at  the  Ecclesia.  He  is  generally  acknowledged  to  be  the 
least  worthy  of  the  ten  orators  of  the  canon ;  but  the  fact  that 
he  is  included  at  all  points  to  some  good  qualities  in  him,  and 
he  has  at  least  the  interest  attaching  to  an  orator  who  shows 
the  level  to  which  at  that  time  an  Athenian  of  natural  but 
uncultivated  eloquence  could  attain. 

Perhaps  the  most  obvious  indication  of  his  ignorance  of  the 
theory  of  speaking  is  his  inability  to  arrange  his  subject-matter. 
The  distinction  between  facts  and  inferences  or  arguments  from 
facts  is  an  important  one,  and  is  marked  by  such  writers  as 
Antiphon  or  Lysias  by  assigning  distinct  parts  of  the  speech  to 
the  narrative  and  to  the  argument.  But  of  any  such  distinction 
Andocides  is  quite  innocent.  His  facts  and  his  arguments  pour 
out  just  as  they  come  to  mind.  Moreover,  they  continue  to 
pour  out  as  long  as  any  are  left.  To  distinguish  between  the 
essential  and  the  non-essential  facts  of  a  tale  implies  piofessional 


ORATORY  :    ANDOCIDES  AND  LYSIAS.  3  8  I 

Bkill  quite  as  much  as  does  discrimination  in  the  arrangement 
of  the  subject-matter;  and  the  lack  of  this  professional  skill 
has  for  its  result  that  Antiphon  lets  his  facts  run  away  with 
him-  Parentheses  of  great  length  are  frequent,  and  lead  to 
many  repetitions  and  much  disorder.  Terse  Andocides  cannut 
be,  and  his  want  of  brevity  entails  want  of  clearness. 

Again,  while  in  the  case  of  Antiphon  we  saw  that  the 
tendency  of  the  technical  orator  was  to  develop  strength  in 
argument,  in  Andocides  we  see  that  the  orator  without  technical 
cultivation  is  unaccustomed  to  deal  with  general  propositions 
and  arguments.  Particulars,  however,  he  can  grasp,  and  thus  he 
is  naturally  led  to  convert  everything  into  narrative.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  this  tendency  to  particulars  and  to  copious 
narrative,  though  distinct  from  the  artistic  brevity  and  clearness 
of  a  Lysias,  has  by  a  law  of  compensation  a  strength  of  its  own. 

In  the  first  place,  the  tendency  is  natural  and  leads  to  a 
natural  arrangement  of  the  topics  of  the  speech.  Next,  and 
this  is  more  important,  the  details  in  Avhich  Andocides  delights 
give  a  reality  and  vividness  to  his  descriptions  which  constitute 
his  chief  claim  to  rank  as  an  orator.  This  graphic  power  is 
considerably  assisted  by  his  practice  of  introducing  dialogue 
into  his  speeches.  This  practice  is  indeed  only  another  charac- 
teristic of  the  type  of  mind,  or  rather  of  the  level  of  oratory, 
which  luxuriates  in  particulars  and  details.  But  what  it  lacks 
in  artistic  repression  it  compensates  for  in  vivacity  and  natural- 
ness. Further,  in  Andocides,  as  in  most  cases,  the  mind  which 
finds  a  difficulty  in  generalisations  but  delights  in  the  parti- 
cular has  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  personal.  Accordingly  we 
find  that  Andocides  supplements  his  powers  of  setting  a  scene 
vividly  before  our  eyes  with  the  power,  equally  graphic,  of  strik- 
ing character-drawing. 

In  the  language  of  Andocides  we  find  the  same  qualities  as 
in  the  treatment  of  his  subject-matter.  His  language  is  that  of 
ordinary  everyday  life,  used  without  any  straining  either  after 
effect  or  after  a  definite  artistic  result.  He  has  not  the  splen- 
dour or  the  archaisms  of  Antiphon.  Like  Antiphon,  however, 
he  has  words  and  phrases  of  a  poetical  colour,  but  the  method 
of  using  them  is  entirely  different  in  the  two  orators.  By 
Antiphon  they  are  used  with  the  deliberate  object  of  realising 
the  conception  which  he  had  formed  of  an  elevated  and  mag- 
nificent style.  In  the  case  of  Andocides,  they  fell  from  the 
speaker's  lips  like  his  anecdotes  and  his  details,  just  as  they  are 
suggested  by  the  association  of  ideas,  in  a  manner  perfectly 
natural  and  quite  inartistic ;  whereas  Antiphon's  genera]  level 


382  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

of  language  is  lofty  enough  to  admit  of  poetical  expressiona 
being  used  without  any  great  discord,  and  the  vocabulary  of 
Andocides  is  such  that  these  words  act  as  a  purple  patch. 

The  style  of  Andocides  is  even  more  loose  and  sprawling 
than  might  have  been  expected.  The  absence  of  a  distinctly 
periodic  style  in  his  predecessor,  Antiphon,  is  remedied  to  a  large 
extent  by  his  frequent  use  of  antitheses  and  parallelisms ;  but 
as  Andocides  does  not  make  any  systematic  or  regular  use  even 
of  this  form  of  composition,  he  is  delivered  over  without  hope 
to  clumsiness  and  long-windedness.  Not  only  do  his  facts,  but 
his  words  run  away  with  him.  The  want  of  artistic  expression 
and  the  lack  of  technical  instruction  are  even  more  obvious  in 
the  style  than  in  the  subject-matter  of  Andocides. 

Of  the  four  speeches  which  have  come  down  to  us  under  the 
name  of  Andocides,  one,  the  speech  against  Alcibiades,  is  cer- 
tainly not  genuine.  Of  the  other  three,  the  greatest  is  that  "  On 
the  Mysteries."  In  spite  of  its  technical  defects,  this  is  a  good 
speech,  not  merely  because  it  possesses  all  the  good  qualities  of 
Andocides  which  we  have  mentioned  above,  but  because  we 
feel  that  the  speaker  kept  touch  throughout  with  his  audience. 
Giving  us  this  impression,  the  speech  possesses  a  reality  which 
many  more  artistic  productions  fail  to  produce.  Specially  notice- 
able in  this  speech  is  the  ethos.  It  was  the  speaker's  object  to 
produce  a  good  impression  of  himself  among  his  hearers,  and  he 
poses  with  gi-eat  success. 

In  this  last  respect  the  speech  "  On  his  Return  "  is  a  great  con- 
trast to  that  "  On  the  Mysteries."  The  ethos  is  equally  marked, 
but  it  is  of  a  different  kind.  The  impression  produced  in  the 
speech  "  On  his  Return  "  is  not  that  of  a  man  whose  good  con- 
science assures  him  that  he  has  nothing  to  fear,  but  of  a  man 
who  depends,  and  whose  hopes  are  based,  on  admitting  that  he 
relies  purely  on  the  good-will  of  his  hearers.  In  other  respects, 
too,  the  speech  "  On  his  Return  "  is  both  less  pleasing  and  less 
good  than  that  "  On  the  Mysteries."  The  former  is  much  more 
artificial  than  the  latter,  and  for  that  very  reason  inferior  to  it. 
Andocides  is  only  good  when  he  is  natural.  The  "  Return  "  is 
brief,  and  consequently  the  sentences  are  more  compact,  but  in 
other  respects  the  condensation  is  that  of  amputation ;  and  An- 
docides deprived  of  his  details  is  shorn  of  his  strength.  The 
circumstances  under  which  the  speech  "On  his  Return"  was 
delivered  did  not  afford  Andocides  much  hope  of  success,  and 
he  is  consequently  throughout  chilled  and  depressed.  He  never 
reaches  the  comfortable  warmth  which  is  the  condition  of  a  good 
anecdote,  and  is  never  sufficiently  at  his  ease  to-  fall  into  a 


oratory:  andocides  and  lysias.  383 

reminiscence  or  quotation  from  the  poets.  This  does  indeed 
render  his  style  more  even,  but  it  deprives  it  of  variety. 

The  speech  "On  the  Peace,"  unjustly  suspected  of  not  being 
genuine,  is  inferior  to  that  "On  the  Mysteries,"  but  presents  all 
the  characteristics  of  Andocides.  It  possesses  no  order  or  method 
in  the  treatment  of  the  subject-matter ;  it  runs  mainly  to  narra- 
tive, and  abounds  in  parentheses  and  ill-constructed  sentences. 
It  is  vivid  and  natural,  and  presents  instances  of  dialogue  in  the 
Andocidean  manner.  It  is  patched  with  reminiscences  from  the 
poets,  and  is  generally  inartistic.  Moreover,  and  this  is  charac- 
teristic of  Andocides,  the  references  to  history  are  thoroughly 
untrustworthy. 

Lysias  was  the  son  of  the  Syracusan  Cephalos,  who  had 
settled  as  a  resident  alien  at  Athens,  and  in  whose  house  Plato 
lays  the  scene  of  his  Republic.  Lysias  himself,  although  bom 
at  Athens  and  in  character  wholly  Attic,  remained  always  a 
nietic.  The  year  of  his  birth  is  uncertain.  On  the  one  hand, 
as  he  went  to  Thurii  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  and  Thurii  was  only 
founded  in  B.C.  444,  he  cannot  have  been  born  at  the  earliest 
before  B.C.  459.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  senior  to  Isocrates, 
and  therefore  was  born  before  B.C.  436.  From  Thurii  he  was 
driven  out  in  B.C.  412  by  the  anti- Athenian  party  on  the  failure 
of  the  Sicilian  expedition.  He  returned  to  Athens,  and  there 
lived  in  peace  until  the  time  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants.  In  b.c. 
404  the  Thirty,  veiling  their  real  motive  of  plunder  under  poli- 
tical accusations,  attacked  various  wealthy  metics,  among  whom 
were  Lysias  and  his  brother  Polemarchos.  The  latter  was  exe- 
cuted, but  Lysias  managed  to  escape  from  Athens  to  Megara. 
There  he  rendered  great  services  to  the  cause  of  the  Athenian 
democracy,  and  on  the  overthrow  of  the  Thirt}^  in  B.C.  403  the 
citizenship  was  accordingly  conferred  on  him,  but  the  decree, 
owing  to  some  informality,  was,  on  the  motion  of  a  political 
opponent,  nullified.  The  first  thing  Lysias  did  on  his  return  to 
Athens  was  to  appeal  to  the  law  for  vengeance  for  the  death  of 
his  brother.  The  speech  which  he  made  on  this  occasion  has, 
in  addition  to  its  intrinsic  merits,  the  interest  of  being  the 
earliest  of  his  extant  speeches,  and  is,  further,  the  only  speech 
recorded  to  have  been  delivered  by  Lysias  himself.  From  this 
time  on  he  must  have  worked  hard  as  a  logographer,  for  over 
two  hundred  speeches  by  him  were  known  to  antiquity,  although 
only  thirty-four  speeches,  whole  or  fragmentary,  have  come  down 
to  us.  This  activity  as  a  logographer  was  probably  rendered 
necessary  for  him  by  the  poverty  to  which  the  Thirty  reduced 
him.     He  died  at  the  age  of  eighty,  and  of  the  later  years  of 


384  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

his  life  nothing  is  known.  But  no  work  of  his,  so  far  as  wa 
know,  can  be  dated  after  B.C.  380.  Of  the  thirty- four  speeches 
which  we  possess,  the  speech  for  Polystratus  (xx.),  that  against 
Andocides  (vi.),  that  "  To  his  Companions"  (viii.),  that  "  For  the 
Soldier"  (ix.),  and  the  Funeral  Oration  (ii.),  must  be  rejected 
as  spurious.  The  remainder  may  be  divided  into  epideictic, 
deliberative,  and  forensic  speeches.  The  epideictic  speeches 
are  represented  by  a  fragment  (quoted  by  Dionysius  of  Halicar- 
nassus,^  Lysias,  c.  29)  of  the  Olympic  oration.  An  epideictic 
speech  is  one  delivered  neither  in  debate  nor  in  a  court  of  law, 
but,  as  its  name  implies,  for  the  sake  of  showing  off  the  oratori- 
cal skill  of  the  speaker.  The  existence  of  this  class  of  speeches 
is  an  indication  of  the  fact  that  the  literature  of  Greece  was 
oral.  The  early  Sophists,  as  Hippias  and  Gorgias,  when  they 
wished  to  display  their  skill  in  the  new  accomplishment  of 
prose  composition,  did  not  attempt  to  do  so  by  publishing  their 
compositions,  but  attended  the  great  festivals  of  Greece  and 
there  recited  their  work.  The  choice  of  a  subject  on  which  to 
hang  their  display  was  determined  by  the  character  of  the  festi- 
vals, and  as  these  were  mostly  pan-Hellenic,  so  was  the  subject 
of  "  Olympic,"  and  other  speeches  of  the  same  kind.  Gorgias 
achieved  much  fame  by  his  Olympic  oration,  in  which  he  ex- 
horted the  Greeks  to  unity,  and  in  B.c.  388  Lysias  delivered  his 
Olympic  oration  on  the  same  subject,  and  with  special  reference 
to  the  need  of  common  Greek  action,  under  the  leadership  of 
Sparta,  to  release  Sicily  from  the  tyranny  of  Dionysius.  The 
deliberative  speeches  of  Lysias  are  represented  by  a  fragment  of 
one  only,  entitled  a  "  Plea  for  the  Constitution."  This  was  writ- 
ten by  Lysias  for  some  citizen  to  deliver  on  an  occasion  when  a 
proposal  was  made  that  only  those  citizens  who  were  landowners 
should  have  the  right  of  voting.  The  rest  of  his  speeches  are 
forensic. 

Like  Antiphon,  Lysias  was  a  logographer,  but,  unlike  Anti- 
phon,  Lysias  adapted  the  character  of  his  speeches  to  the  cha- 
racter of  the  persons  who  were  to  deliver  them,  and  from  tliis 
difference  logically  flow  the  distinctions  which  differentiate 
L}sias  from  his  predecessor.     The  considerations  which  influ- 

^  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  (to  be  distinguished  from  Dionysius  Thrax, 
■who  wrote  the  first  grammar,  Dionysius  the  elder,  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  who 
■wrote  tragedies,  and  Dionysius  of  Samos,  who  -wrote  an  epic  poem  in  four 
books  entitled  BacrffapiKo),  born  in  Halicarnassus  B.C.  70,  came  to  Roma 
about  B.C.  30,  and  there  taught  rhetoric.  Died  B.C.  8.  His  largest  work  was 
his  'Pct/xai'/CTj 'A/3X<^"'\o7ia,  in  twenty  books  (of  which  nine  remain!,  on  tha 
history  of  Rome  to  the  beginning  of  the  Punic  wars.  He  also  wrote  a  uuiu* 
ber  of  works  on  rheturio. 


OKATORY;    ANDOCIDES  and  LYSIAS.  385 

enced  Lysias  in  the  direction  of  ethos  and  chaiacter-drawing 
are  not  hard  to  conjecture.  In  the  first  place,  he  was  an  emi- 
nently practical  man,  and  his  speeches  had  the  business-like 
object  of  winning  the  cause  in  which  they  were  delivered. 
The  stories  of  his  marvellous  success,  if  not  true,  yet  show  the 
reputation  which  he  had  for  success,  and  this  success  would 
have  been  much  compromised  if  he  had  adhered  to  the  fashion 
of  composing  orations  which  might  bring  much  literary  fame  to 
the  composer  who  wrote  them,  but  could  not  be  mistaken  for 
the  words  of  the  client  who  delivered  them.  To  avoid  rousing 
a  suspicion  that  the  speaker  had  consulted  a  logographer  was 
the  first  duty  of  a  practical  speech-writer. 

But,  in  the  next  place,  Lysias  was  an  artist,  and  his  feeling 
of  proportion  and  harmony  would  make  him  instinctively  shrink 
from  the  jarring  discrepancies  which  must  regularly  arise  when 
a  logographer  delivered  to  speakers  varying  in  character  speeches 
which  never  varied  in  style.  Lastly,  Lysias  was  a  student  of 
human  nature,  and,  good  as  he  was  in  argument,  he  knew  per- 
fectly well  that  men  are  influenced  by  other  means  than  reason. 
He  acted  implicitly  on  what  Menander  formulates  explicitly  La 
the  words:  "It  is  the  character  of  a  speaker,  not  his  speech, 
which  persuades  us."  Subtly  delineating  in  a  favourable  light 
his  client's  character  by  means  of  strokes  individually  too  fine 
to  arouse  the  suspicion  of  his  hearers,  Lysias  succeeds  in  the 
result  in  producing  a  strong  feeling  in  favour  of  his  client.  This 
ethos  it  is  which  gained  him  his  practical  success  and  has  estab- 
lished his  literary  fame. 

Inasmuch  as  the  ordinary  man  does  not  talk  in  lofty  language, 
and  as  it  was  the  ordinary  man  who  sought  Lysias'  services,  it 
is  obvious  that  in  the  speeches  which  Lysias  puts  into  his 
clients'  mouths,  we  cannot  expect  to  find  the  magnificence  ot 
Antiphon  or  the  semi-poetry  and  florid  colouring  of  Gorgiaa; 
Lysias,  in  fact,  is  the  representative,  and,  as  far  as  oratory  is 
concerned,  he  may  be  said  to  be  the  inventor  of  the  plain  style.^ 

In  his  diction  is  exemplified  particularly  what  is  meant  by  the 
plain  style.  The  forms  of  words  which  he  uses  belong  to  the 
new  Attic,  and  his  words  themselves  belong  to  the  vocabulary 
of  pure  Attic.  Furthermore,  he  uses  his  words  in  their  right 
and  proper  sense,  observing  those  shades  of  meaning  and  those 
impalpable  associations  of  ideas  which,  though  they  defy  defini- 
tion, determine  decidedly  whether  a  word  under  given  circum- 
stances can  or  cannot  be  used  with  correctness  and  propriety. 
Poetical  words,  archaisms,  and  unusual  words  are  avoided.  The 
^  Urx"^"  ydvos,  genus  tenue. 

2  B 


386  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

practice  of  duplicating  a  word  or  idea  by  means  of  synonyms, 
not  unfrequently  employed  for  decorative  purposes  by  Antiphon, 
is  used  by  Lysias  only  for  purposes  of  pathos.  Artistic  orna- 
ment is  unknown,  with  the  exception  of  antithesis  of  the  vari- 
ous kinds  ;  but  antithesis  was  too  firmly  ingrained  in  the  oratory 
of  the  day  for  I>ysias  to  escape  from  it.  The  few  figures  of  speech 
and  thought  which  he  uses,  as  asyndeton,  polysyndeton,  and 
hypophora,  are  rather  natural  than  rhetorical ;  while  paromoia  * 
(i.e.  assonances),  so  far  from  being  artistic,  are  of  essentially 
popular  origin,  and  characteristic  of  a  rude  stage  of  literature. 
In  expression  Lysias  is  brief,  concise,  and  clear.  His  sentences 
are  pregnant,  and  he  contrives  to  say  in  a  few  words  what  in 
other  people  would  need  many  words. 

As  all  ornament  and  splendour  is  excluded  from  the  plain 
style,  so,  too,  pathos  in  the  strict  sense"  is  not  to  be  attained  by 
it ;  and  partly  for  the  same  reason.  The  cases  put  into  Lysias' 
hands  did  not  admit  either  of  magnificent  language  or  much 
appeal  to  the  emotions.  Partly,  also,  the  renunciation  of  mag- 
nificence in  language  involves  the  renunciation  of  pathos.  The 
man  who  either  can  only  or  will  only  use  everyday  language  is 
thereby  precluded  from  an  oratorical  appeal  to  the  emotions. 
On  the  other  hand,  so  far  as  a  simple  recital  of  the  bare  facts 
can  touch  the  feelings,  the  plain  style  is  capable  of  pathos,  and 
in  Lysias  we  find  this — the  pathos  of  facts.  In  this  respect  he 
is  much  aided  by  his  power  of  setting  before  our  eyes  the  scene 
which  he  describes.^  This  is  effected  not  unfrequently  by  the 
introduction  of  some  trivial  detail,  which  it  is  not  below  the 
dignity  of  the  plain  style  to  record.  Thus,  in  the  speech  against 
Eratosthenes,  the  scene  of  the  agents  of  the  Thirty  plundering 
the  house  of  Polemarchus  is  brought  clearly  before  us  by  the 
remark  that  they  took  the  very  ear-rings  from  his  wife's  ears. 
To  another  speech,  that  on  the  murder  of  Eratosthenes,  we  may 
refer  for  a  picture  of  an  Athenian  interior,  which,  in  its  simplicity, 
reality,  and  interest,  is  as  vivid  as  anything  in  Greek  literature. 

The  power  of  vividness  implies  not  only  observation  but 
truth  to  nature,  and  in  this  Lysias  is  unsurpassed.  It  is  a 
quality  imperatively  demanded  by  the  end  at  which  he  is  per- 
petually aiming,  viz.,  to  harmonise  the  speech  with  the  speaker. 
Lysias  studied  the  character  of  his  clients,  and  had  the  power 
of  reproducing  that  character  in  his  speech.     Eurthermore,  the 

1  Such  as  povXeveiv  and  dov\eietv, 

2  "  Quo  deturbantur  animi  et  concitantur,  in  quo  uno  regnat  oratia  "^ 
Cicero,  Or.  37,  128. 

3  Technically  called  irdpyeia. 


I   UNIVERSITY   I 
.J 


oft 


ATORT:    ANDOCIDES  AND  LYSIAS.  387 

speech  is  not  only  one  that  the  man  might  have  delivered,  but 
one  that  is  inspired  by  the  situation.  Along  with  this  truth 
to  nature  there  goes  in  Lysias  an  exquisite  literary  truth.  His 
words  are  a  simple  and  faithful  translation  of  his  thoughts. 
There  is  nothing  false,  ambitious,  or  vulgar  in  his  plain  style. 
Figurative  language  and  metaphors  he  avoids,  and  thus  the 
clearness  of  his  meaning  and  the  transparency  of  his  argument 
are  secured.  He  is  thus  also  saved  from  the  danger  of  false 
taste,  to  which  figurative  language  is  apt  to  lead.  There  is 
nothing  strained  or  over-wrought  in  his  style.  For  Lysias  the 
right  word  is  quite  strong  enough. 

It  is  in  this  lucidity  of  style  that  Lysias'  highest  claim  to 
rank  as  an  orator  consists.  The  most  important  element  in  the 
modern  conception  of  oratory  is  passion  and  fire,  and  it  is  by 
outbursts  of  such  a  kind  that  the  great  oratorical  reputations  of 
modern  times  have  been  made.  Fire  is  indeed  inseparable  from, 
though  it  is  not  the  whole  of  the  best  oratory,  and  in  fire  Lysias 
is  wanting.  The  qualities  which  go  to  make  the  plain  style  are, 
in  fact,  incompatible  with  passion  and  fire.  For  argument  vigo- 
rous and  sober,  Lysias'  style  is  adapted,  but  it  is  by  its  very  nature 
excluded  from  those  higher  levels  and  more  daring  flights  of 
language  to  which  the  impassioned  orator  ascends.  The  end, 
however,  which  Lysias  does  propose  to  himself  he  secures.  In 
clear  argument  and  description  he  is  unsurpassed,  and  this  is  a 
great  merit  in  an  orator ;  for  an  orator's  first  duty  is  to  be  in- 
telligible. The  more  difficult  a  speaker  is  to  follow,  the  sooner 
his  audience's  power  of  attention  is  exhausted  and  the  more  of 
his  speech  is  wasted. 

As  in  diction,  so  too  in  composition  the  plain  style  has  its 
distinguishing  characteristics.  Generally  speaking,  there  is  no 
eff"ort  after  rhythm  and  rounded  periods  ;  but  it  is  necessary  to 
add  certain  qualifications  to  this  general  statement.  The  poli- 
tical speeches  of  Lysias  differ  in  this  respect  from  the  private 
speeches,  and  in  the  same  speech  the  argument  will  difi"er  from 
the  narrative.  The  political  speeches  and  the  argument  are 
more  rounded  and  rhythmical  than  the  private  speeches  and 
the  narrative.  In  the  political  speeches  particularly,  two  or 
three  periods  are  united  into  a  larger  rhythmical  whole,  and  the 
larger  periods  thus  formed  recur  with  a  regularity  which  gives  a 
somewhat  stiff  air  to  the  speech,  and  are  apt  to  become  monoto- 
nous. In  the  narrative  of  public  speeches,  however,  the  sen- 
tences are  longer  and  looser,  while  the  narrative  of  private 
speeches  is  decidedly  "  running"  in  character,  though  the  grace 
which  characterises  it  is  such  as  could  only  come  from  a  writer 


388  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

who  had  also  composed  in  periods.  In  the  argument  of  private 
speeches  there  is  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  composition  of 
the  political  speeches.  Two  or  three  periods  in  the  narrower 
sense  are  united  into  a  larger  whole,  but  these  wholes  are  relieved 
by  the  interposition  of  more  freely  constructed  clauses.  The 
apparent  irregularity  thus  gained  is  calculated  to  allay  any 
suspicion  that  the  speech  is  not  the  work  of  the  speaker  him- 
self. But,  although  this  subtle  art  is  one  of  Lysias'  characteristic 
excellences,  the  end  of  a  sentence,  on  examination,  generally 
shows  to  a  reader,  what  perhaps  would  escape  the  hearer,  that 
the  whole  sentence  has  a  unity  and  an  art  which  the  sentence 
in  its  earlier  development  would  scarcely  lead  you  to  expect. 

If  we  now  turn  to  Lysias'  treatment  of  the  subject-matter, 
his  arrangement  and  division,  we  shall  find  that  as  he  lavishes 
his  subtlest  art  on  the  composition  of  the  narrative,  so  too  it  is 
in  the  substance  of  the  narrative  that  Lysias  is  strongest.  He 
has  the  art  of  telling  a  story  so  simply  and  frankly,  and  of 
making  his  own  point  of  view  so  intelligible  and  satisfactory, 
that  when  he  comes  to  the  argument  his  work  is  done.  He  has 
won  over  the  judges  already  without  their  knowing  it.  The 
character  of  his  client  has  incidentally  been  painted  in  such 
favourable  colours  that  imperceptibly  the  hearer  has  been  in- 
duced to  accept  it  as  a  strong  proof  that  the  cause  Lysias  pleada 
is  good. 

In  the  argument  it  is  generally  accepted  that  Lysias  is  not  so 
strong  as  in  the  narrative,  even  though  his  logical  mind  and  his 
powers  of  penetration  made  him  excellent  in  "  invention,"  tech- 
nically so  termed.  It  is  a  criticism  as  old  as  Plato  ^  that  Lysias' 
arguments  are  not  organically  united,  but  merely  agglomerated 
together.  But,  in  the  first  place,  we  see,  especially  in  such  a 
speech  as  that  for  Manlitheus,  that,  viewed  as  the  outcome  of 
the  speaker's  character,  the  arguments  have  an  artistic  propriety 
in  their  relation  to  each  other  which  approaches  to  the  unity  of 
an  organism ;  and  in  the  next  place,  when  the  arguments  are 
really  disjointed,  this  very  want  of  connection,  like  the  looser 
form  of  composition  adopted  in  the  narrative  of  the  private 
speeches,  is  calculated  to  accord  with  the  professedly  inartistic 
but  really  artistic  character  of  the  speech. 

Finally,  among  tlie  characteristics  of  Lysias  is  the  grace  of  his 
style,  which  both  ancient  commentators  and  modern  have  recog- 
nised as  belonging  peculiarly  to  Lysias.  To  define  it  has  always 
been  impossible,  and  to  feel  it  is  necessarily  a  matter  of  more 
difficulty  with  modern  readers  than  it  was  with  ancient.  In 
1  Phad.  264B-B. 


oratory:  andocides  and  lysias.  389 

respect  of  this  quality,  however,  we  recognise  the  work  of  that 
reaction  of  audience  on  speaker  on  which  the  advance  of  oratory 
depends.  Sculpture  and  the  drama  had  by  the  time  of  Lysias 
developed  to  a  high  degree  the  natural  Athenian  feeling  for  the 
beautiful  in  art.  The  best  Greek  art  is  characterised  by  the 
easy  grace  which  is  the  opposite  of  over-straining  and  painful 
effort.  When,  therefore,  a  variety  of  oratory  appeared  which 
was  distinguished  by  this  grace,  it  found  itself  placed  under  the 
very  conditions  calculated  to  develop  it.  Had  the  speeches  of 
Lysias  found  a  less  prepared  public,  they  would  have  deteriorated 
to  its  level  for  lack  of  the  sympathetic  reaction  which  is  the  life 
of  art. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  say  something  of  all  the  surviving 
orations  of  Lysias,  but  the  leading  characteristics  of  a  few  of 
the  most  interesting  speeches  may  be  briefly  mentioned.  The 
greatest  of  his  speeches  is  the  one  against  Eratosthenes  (xii.), 
which  Lysias  himself  delivered.  Beyond  the  personal  interest 
which  the  speech  has  for  us  as  giving  us  some  information  with 
regard  to  the  orator  himself,  and  as  showing  the  courage  which 
he  must  have  had  to  deliver  certain  passages  at  such  a  time, 
this  speech  is  of  the  greatest  historical  interest,  as  making  us, 
in  virtue  of  its  vividness,  as  it  were,  actual  spectators  of  the 
reign  of  terror  instituted  by  the  Thirty  Tyrants.  The  tale  of 
Lysias'  own  adventures  and  escape  is  vivid  and  exciting.  More 
elevated,  more  pathetic,  and  more  fiery  than  his  other  speeches, 
though  in  these  respects  inferior  to  later  Greek  eloquence,  this 
speech  stands  quite  by  itself  in  the  orations  of  Lysias,  both  as 
to  its  character  and  as  to  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was 
delivered. 

Most  characteristic  of  Lysias'  power  of  drawing  character  is 
the  speech  for  Mantitheus  (xvi.)  Mantitheus,  an  Alcibiades 
without  his  faults,  is  one  of  the  most  sympathetic  and  charming 
pieces  of  character-drawing  in  all  Greek  literature.  The  simple 
self-confidence  which  led  Mantitheus  to  volunteer  for  dangerous 
service  in  the  field,  and  now  presses  him  to  discharge  his  duties 
of  a  citizen  in  the  assembly,  his  frank  contempt  for  what  some 
people  think,  and  his  boyish  desire  to  command  the  good  opinion 
of  others,  are  all  drawn  with  a  genuine  delight  in  youth  which 
is  truly  Greek. 

The  speech  on  the  murder  of  Eratosthenes  we  have  already 
mentioned  as  being  a  vivid  picture  even  for  such  a  master  as 
Lysias.  As  a  sketch  of  manners,  as  a  source  of  information 
about  Athenian  households,  and  for  dramatic  interest  as  well  as 
literary  merit,  it  is  equally  striking. 


390  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

On  the  so-called  defence  on  a  charge  of  seeking  to  abolish  the 
democracy  (xxv.).  which  is  really  a  speech  on  behalf  of  some 
one  undergoing  the  scrutiny  for  some  public  office,  critics  are 
divided.  Dobree  and  Reiske  ranked  it  extremely  high ;  Mr. 
Jebb  ^  is  inclined  to  think  it  was  written  in  irony.  What  tho 
speech  amounts  to  is  that  in  politics  no  man  has  convictions, 
but  only  interests.  This  view  the  speaker  advances  with  an  air 
of  quiet  pity  for  people  who,  from  no  fault  of  their  own,  have 
not  the  knowledge  of  the  world  and  the  brain-power  requisite 
for  grasping  this  gi-eat  generalisation.  It  would  seem  that  those 
critics  rank  the  speech  high  who  believe  that  this  discovery 
exhausts  the  science  of  politics.  But  recognising  that  this 
axiom  is  only  a  half-truth,  and  a  misleading  half-truth,  we  may 
be  content  to  say  nothing  more  of  it  than  that  it  was  an 
excellent  line  of  defence,  and  would  win  many  votes  at  the 
present  day,  as  having  "no  humbug"  about  it. 

The  speech  against  Philon  (xxxi.)  should  be  read  as  a  com- 
panion piece  to  the  last  mentioned.  Both  speeches  were  de- 
livered on  the  occasion  of  a  scrutiny.  In  both  cases  the  chief 
objection  to  the  candidate  seems  to  have  been  that  he  had 
done  little  for,  if  nothing  against,  the  democracy ;  and  in  the 
two  speeches  we  have  Lysias'  way  of  dealing  with  both  sides  of 
the  question.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  that  Lysias  believed  in  the 
interest-theory  of  politics  ;  it  is  equally  hard  to  conceive  that 
he  thought  as  badly  of  Philon  as  he  says ;  and  in  neither  case 
are  we  compelled  to  conceive  any  such  thing. 

In  the  speech  for  the  invalid  (xxiv.)  we  have  an  illustration 
of  the  humour  which  in  a  more  suppressed  form  is  to  be  found 
elsewhere  in  Lysias.  In  this  speech  not  only  are  various 
passages  humorous,  but  the  whole  treatment  of  the  subject  is 
comic. 

In  conclusion,  the  speech  on  the  property  of  Aristophanes 
(xix.)  is  deservedly  famous  for  the  extreme  skill  with  which  in 
it  Lysias  fights  a  case  full  of  difficulties.  It  is  an  admirable, 
indeed  the  best,  example  of  the  subtlety  with  which  he  ap- 
proaches a  deep-seated  prejudice  in  the  minds  of  the  judges  and 
the  delicacy  with  M'hich  he  handles  or  rather  avoids  it. 

Lysias,  in  point  of  style,  steered  a  middle  course  between  the 
ordinary  everyday  language  of  Andocides  and  the  florid  semi- 
poetical  prose  of  Gorgias.  It  must  not,  however,  be  supposed 
that  this  middle  style  was  attained  without  any  intermediate 
links  in  the  evolution.  Lysias  had  his  predecessors  in  his  own 
particular  course.  One  of  these  predecessors  was  Thrasymachus, 
1  A.  0.1  248. 


oratory:  andocides  and  lysias.  391 

the  Sophist,  wlio  has  gained  unenviable  notoriety  from  the 
t^ketch  of  his  character  given  by  Plato  in  the  first  book  of  the 
Republic.  He  is  there  represented  as  a  mercenary  and  some- 
what brutal  Sophist,  who  openly  avows  that  the  whole  of  morality 
is  based  on  the  axiom  that  might  is  right.  He  is  defeated  in 
argument  by  Socrates,  and  even  comes  to  do,  what  Socrates  says 
he  had  never  seen  him  do  before — blush. ^  Whatever  the  value 
of  his  teaching  as  a  Sophist  may  have  been,  he  rendered  services 
to  Greek  prose  as  a  rhetorician.  Born  probably  about  b.c.  457, 
he  came  to  Athens  about  B.c.  412  and  there  taught  rhetoric — 
a  means  of  gaining  a  living  apparently  not  pleasant  enough  to 
prevent  him  from  committing  suicide,  if  we  may  believe  Juvenal.^ 
For  the  instruction  of  his  pupils  he  wrote  common-places,  proems, 
kc,  and  also  pattern  speeches.  It  is  in  the  latter  rather  than 
in  his  contributions  to  the  technic  of  rhetoric  that  his  services 
to  Attic  prose  lie.  We  have  nothing  but  insignificant  fragments 
of  his  speeches  left,  but  ancient  critics,  such  as  Aristotle  and 
his  pupil  Theophrastus,  who  had  his  speeches  before  them,  give 
us  sufficient  information  to  enable  us  to  form  an  idea  of  the 
nature  of  his  contributions  to  the  development  of  Attic  oratory. 
As  Gorgias  had  endeavoured  to  write  in  a  style  intermediate 
between  everyday  language  and  poetry,  with  the  result  of 
keeping  too  closely  to  the  side  of  poetry,  so  Thrasymachus 
endeavoured  to  form  a  style  between  the  prose  of  Gorgias  and 
the  language  of  ordinary  life,  with  the  result  of  paving  the  way 
to  a  more  successful  attempt  on  the  part  of  Lysias.  Thrasy- 
machus also  first  framed  periods  of  a  kind  adapted  to  practical 
oratory,  and  employed  a  prose  rhythm — based  on  the  paean — 
suitable  for  an  orator.  In  these  two  respects,  as  in  his  avoid- 
ance of  hiatus,  we  see  that  Thrasymachus  had  before  his  mind 
the  needs  of  a  speaker,  not  merely  of  a  writer. 

Theodoras  and  Euenus  are  two  other  Sophists  who  receive 
from  Plato,  in  the  Pkcedrics,  treatment  little  more  complimentary 
than  does  Thrasymachus  in  the  Republic.  Both  seem  to  have 
contributed  something  to  the  theory  of  rhetoric,  but  of  the  style 
of  Euenus  we  know  nothing,  while  that  of  Theodorus  seems 
to  have  been  closer  to  that  of  Gorgias  than  of  Thrasymachus. 

'  Thrasymachus  is  further  characterised  by  the  remark  made  to  him  by 
Eerodicus  or  Prodicus  :  dei  dpaaij/j-axos  el. 

*  vii.  203  :    "  Paenituit  multos  vanse  sterilisque  cathedrae,  sicut  Thrasy- 
machi   probat  exitus."     To  which   the    Scholiast   adds:   "Khetoris   apud 
Athenas,  qui  suspendio  periit."    Athenaeua,  x.  4S4F.,  gives  an  epitaph  on 
him  in  which  his  name  is  ingeniously  introduced  into  a  hexameter : — 
ToCvo/xa  drJTa  pQi  &\<pa  <ra.v  5  fiO  &X<pa  x'  oS  ffdy 
Uarpls  KoKxvSijov  '  17  di  rix"!  <fo<pLi}. 


392  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Further,  Critias,  the  infamous  member  t)f  the  Thirty,  must  b€ 
mentioned  among  the  predecessors  in  hif  own  line  of  Lysias. 
We  have  already  mentioned  Critias  among  the  dramatists  of 
the  decline :  his  literary  activity  seems  to  have  been  wide,  and 
in  oratory  he  was  much  more  successful  than  he  was  in  poetry. 
We  have  nothing  left  of  his  speeches  whereby  to  judge  him,  but 
the  value  set  on  him  by  such  critics  as  Phrynichus  ^  and  Philos- 
tratus^  is  so  high  that  he  can  have  been  but  little  inferiorto Lysias, 
Critias  is  an  interesting  example  of  how  at  this  time  the  condi- 
tions of  intellectual  life  at  Athens  favoured  the  development  of 
oratory  at  the  expense  of  the  drama.  If  the  attractions  of  the 
new  world  of  prose  were  not,  as  in  his  case,  strong  enough  to 
withdraw  a  man  of  ability  entirely  from  poetical  composition,  still 
the  openings  in  the  field  of  prose  were  so  much  more  numerous 
that  he  had  much  greater  chance  of  distinguishing  himself  theiei 


CHAPTEE  IIL 

BPIDBICTIO   RHETORIC   AND   THE   TRANSITION. 

On  Isocrates  critics  have  passed  the  most  opposite  opiniona^ 
from  Milton,  who  pays  a  passing  tribute  to  "  the  old  man  elo- 
quent," to  Niebuhr,  who  calls  him  "  a  thoroughly  miserable  and 
despicable  writer,"  who  did  indeed  create  an  art,  but  one  which 
consisted  solely  of  words  without  a  single  idea.  If,  then,  we 
wish  to  arrive  at  the  truth  of  the  matter,  we  must  first  recog- 
nise that  Isocrates,  like  most  writers,  cannot  be  dismissed  in  a 
single  sentence.  There  were  various  ends  at  which  Isocrates 
aimed,  and  consequently  there  are  difi'erent  standards  by  which 
we  must  test  him.  The  result  of  one  of  these  tests  must  not 
blind  us  to  the  result  of  the  rest. 

Disposed  by  his  natural  inclinations  to  take  part  in  politics, 
Isocrates  had  neither  the  voice  nor  the  nerve  to  make  a  speech 
in  public.  Impelled,  however,  by  his  faculty  for  compositioa 
to  write  speeches,  even  if  he  could  not  deliver  them,  he  wrote 
and  circulated  political  orations.  These  were  in  effect  political 
pamphlets,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  practice  of  issuing  such 
pamphlets  may  be  compared  to  the  journalism  of  the  present 
day.     Thus,  in  the  first  place,  Isocrates  appears  as  a  politician, 

^  Grammarian  of  second  century  A.D.  and  a  purist  in  Attic  Greek. 
3  Sophist  of  third  century  A.D.,  author  of  "Lives  of  the  Sophists"  and 
other  works. 


ORATORY  :    EPIDEICTIC  RHETORIC.  393 

nnd  judged  as  a  politician  he  cannot  be  valued  very  highly. 
Political  life  is  concerned  more  with  details  than  with  prin- 
ciples, but  for  details  Isocrates  had  much  the  same  feeling  as 
philosophy  at  certain  times  has  had  for  particulars.  Universals 
in  the  one  case  and  abstract  political  propositions  in  the  other 
had  such  a  lofty  and  mysterious  dignity  about  them,  that  no 
politician  or  philosopher  of  this  stamp  would  defile  himself  by 
touching  details  or  particulars.  A  man  who  imagined  that 
votes  could  be  secured  in  the  assembly  or  the  business  of 
government  carried  on  by  means  of  irrelevant  dissertations  on 
the  desirability  of  freedom  for  the  cities  of  Ionia,  was  also 
capable,  as  was  Isocrates,  of  persuading  himself  that  words 
could  influence  a  Philip  or  a  Dionysius. 

It  may  be  said,  however,  that,  although  government  is  largely 
a  mattpr  of  detail,  great  and  leading  ideas  are  indispensable  for 
statesmanship,  and  that  it  is  precisely  in  favour  of  these  great 
conceptions  that  Isocrates  renounces  petty  details.  To  a  certain 
extent  this  is  true ;  but,  in  the  first  place,  it  must  be  noticed 
that  a  statesman  must  not  only  possess  great  ideas,  but  must 
also  have  some  notion  of  how  to  realise  them ;  and  it  is  just 
because  Isocrates  never  even  puts  the  question  to  himself 
whether  his  ideals  are  in  any  way  practicable  that  he  is  no 
statesman. 

It  is  not,  however,  solely  as  a  political  pamphleteer  that 
Isocrates  appears  before  us,  nor  is  the  test  of  statesmanship  the 
only  one  that  has  to  be  applied  to  him.  Although  in  the  earlier 
years  of  his  life  (B.C.  403-393)  he  was  a  logographer,  and  we 
have  still  extant  six  of  his  speeches  thus  written,  he  subse- 
quently entirely  repudiated  forensic  rhetoric,  spoke  with  much 
contempt  of  it,  and  earned  his  living  by  teaching.  He  was,  in 
fact,  a  Sophist,  much  as  he  disliked  to  be  ranked  with  that  use- 
ful class  of  men.  On  his  own  showing  his  object  was  the  same 
as  theirs,  although,  according  to  his  own  perliaps  not  too  im- 
partial verdict,  he  was  as  superior  to  them  as,  to  use  a  compa- 
rison of  his  own,  a  Phidias  to  a  doll-maker.  He  gave  to  his 
pupils,  he  says,  a  more  thorough  education,  and  imparted  to 
them  much  nobler  sentiments.  As  far  as  we  are  in  a  position 
to  check  his  statements,  it  would  seem  that  the  education  he 
gave  was  more  thorough  than  that  of  other  Sophists,  inasmuch 
as  he  proceeded  on  the  sound  plan  of  making  his  pupils  work 
themselves  instead  of  contenting  himself  with  placing  before 
them  his  own  finished  specimens  of  composition.  As  to  the 
nobler  sentiments  which  he  imparted,  he  possessed  only  a  very 
superficial  acquaintance  with  moral  philosophy,  and  perhaps  hia 


394  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

claim  has  its  real  basis  in  the  pan-Hellenic  views  which  coloured 
his  work. 

Isocratss  was  a  fashionable  teacher.  He  takes  a  pride  in 
having  wealthy  pupils,  and  pan-Hellenism  was  the  fashion.  The 
causes  which  led  to  this  are  tolerably  clear.  The  tendency  to 
autonomy,  always  strong  in  dividing  the  Greeks,  was  in  the 
time  of  Isocrates  gaining  fatal  strength.  At  the  same  time  the 
solvent  effects  of  a  higher  culture,  which  had  at  first  worked 
only  on  the  greater  minds — consciously  on  Euripides,  for  in- 
stance, unconsciously  on  Aristophanes  —  were  now  sinking 
deeper,  and  were  dissolving  the  old  conceptions  of  a  citizen's 
duties,  even  in  the  minds  of  those  who  merely  possessed  culture 
and  not  genius.  On  the  other  hand,  the  more  a  man  of  educa- 
tion felt  the  impossibility  of  complying  with  the  exacting 
demands  made  of  old  by  the  state  upon  its  citizens,  the  more 
closely  he  was  drawn  to  the  educated  men  of  other  states,  with 
whom  he  had  the  tie  of  a  common  culture.  Ineffectual  as  were 
Isocrates'  pamphlets  from  a  political  point  of  view,  they  yet 
circulated  amongst  the  literary  classes  of  every  city  in  Greece. 
Thus,  pan-Hellenism  became  a  mark  of  culture,  and  Isocrates 
puts  it  well  forward  as  one  of  the  advantages  which  his  method 
of  education  offered. 

It  is  a  testimon}^  at  any  rate,  to  the  success  of  Isocrates  as  a 
teacher,  that  among  his  pupils  may  be  found  rhetoricians  and 
politicians  of  distinction.  Unfortunately,  however,  of  the  his- 
torians who  were  his  pupils,  Ephorus  and  Theopompus,  and 
who  might  have  been  valuable  proofs  of  his  power  as  a  teacher, 
we  do  not  know  enough  to  affect  our  estimate  of  Isocrates  in 
this  capacity.  Leaving  this  side  of  Isocrates'  character,  in 
which  he  appears  to  greater  advantage  than  he  does  as  a  politi- 
cian, we  have  now  to  consider  him  in  his  true  light  as  a  man  of 
literary  style. 

Unfortunately  for  our  appreciation  of  Isocrates'  literary  merit, 
we  at  the  present  day  regard  prose  composition  not  as  an  end  in 
itself,  but  as  a  means  for  conveying  ideas,  and  we  are  apt  to 
judge  a  writer  by  the  worth  of  what  he  has  to  say  rather  than 
by  the  way  in  Avhich  he  says  it.  The  privilege  of  paying  atten- 
tion solely  to  form,  with  little  regard  to  matter,  is  now  restricted 
to  writers  of  verse.  The  idea  that  a  prose  writer  may  rely  on 
the  intrinsic  beauty  of  his  expression,  without  any  care  to  con- 
vey information  or  impart  conviction,  is  foreign  to  our  practical 
mode  of  thought.  Even  in  that  form  of  modern  literature — the 
novel — which  has  its  end  in  itself,  and  has  not,  as  a  rule,  any 
ulterior  and  practical  end,  the  tendency  is  more  and  more  to  lay 


oratory:  epideictic  rhetoric.  395 

Btrcss  on  the  plot  or  the  character- drawing,  instead  of  aiming, 
as  might  be  expected,  at  affording  the  pleasure  which  results 
directly  from  beauty  of  expression.  Without  passing  any 
opinion  on  the  character  of  this  tendency — which  might  be  fur- 
ther illustrated  by  the  fact  that  prose  dramas  are  driving  out 
dramas  ia  verse — we  must,  to  obtain  a  fair  appreciation  of  Iso- 
crates,  insist  that  he  ought  not  to  be  judged  exclusively  from 
the  modern  point  of  view,  but  should  be  tested  by  the  success 
with  which  he  effected  what  he  strove  after,  and  by  the  services 
which  he  rendered  to  prose  literature. 

As  Antiphon  and  Lysias  had  each  his  own  theory  of  oratory 
— Antiphon  magnificence  and  Lysias  simplicity — the  realisation 
of  which  constitutes  his  claim  to  celebrity,  so  Isocrates  must  be 
judged  by  the  success  with  which  he  developed  the  florid  style 
of  rhetoric  originated  by  Gorgias.  The  rhetoric  of  Gorgias  and 
Isocrates  is  epideictic ;  it  aims  not  at  instruction  or  conviction, 
but  at  the  display  of  beautiful  prose.  Accordingly,  we  see  that 
when  Cicero  ^  says  of  Isocrates'  style  that  it  is  "  porapas  quam 
pugnte  aptius,"  or  when  Quintilian  ^  says  Isocrates  is  "  palaestrae 
quam  pugnae  magis  accommodatus,"  or,  in  Mr.  Sandy's  ^  words, 
"  At  the  end  of  our  perusal  we  feel  that  it  is  the  graceful  rheto- 
rician and  not  the  vehement  orator,  the  dexterous  fencer  and 
not  the  bold  man  of  battle,  that  has  engaged  our  attention," 
these  criticisms  are  indeed  true,  but  they  are  not  condemnatory 
of  Isocrates.  Just  as  the  plain  style  of  Lysias  is  in  its  nature 
and  by  its  definition  precluded  from  stirring  appeals  to  the 
emotions,  so  too  epideictic  oratory  aims  confessedly  at  pomp 
and  not  at  doing  battle,  at  a  display  of  dexterous  fencing,  and 
not  at  bold  deeds  of  arms.  It  is  no  condemnation  of  Lysias  or 
of  Isocrates  that  they  do  not  attain  qualities  which  were  incom- 
patible with  the  theory  of  oratory  which  each  was  concerned  in 
developing. 

If  now  we  inquire  whether  Isocrates  realised  his  ideal,  we 
find  that  he  was  successful  in  his  theory  of  his  art.  Gorgias  in 
his  endeavours  to  create  beautiful  prose  fell  into  the  mistake  of 
transplanting  into  prose  the  beauties  of  poetry,  instead  of  devel- 
oping the  beauties  of  prose  itself.  This  is  seen  in  two  things : 
first,  he  decorated  prose  with  purple  patches  of  poetical  expres- 
sions, and  next  he  imported  into  prose  the  rhythms  of  poetry. 
These  two  sins  of  taste  Isocrates  avoided.  His  diction  is  pure 
Attic,  in  the  same  sense  as  is  that  of  Lysias.  His  vocabulary 
excludes  unusual  and  poetical  words,  while  at  the  same  time, 

1  Orat.  42.  2  jnst.  Or.  X.  L  49. 

'  Iiocrates  (Bivingtons),  p.  xvii. 


$g6  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

although  using  almost  exclusively  the  vocabulary  of  everyday 
life,  he  yet,  by  his  manipulation  of  it,  raises  it  to  a  literary  level 
above  that  of  ordinary  conversation.  In  the  next  place,  instead 
of  borrowing  the  rhythms  of  poetry,  Isocrates  perfected  prose 
rhythm.  It  is  his  rhythm  which  is  at  once  Isocrates'  chief 
characteristic  and  his  great  contribution  to  the  prose  of  all  later 
times  and  literatures.  If  to  these  excellences  of  Isocrates  we 
add  that  his  full  and  rounded  periods,  though  massed  together 
in  sentences  of  great  volume,  are  balanced  so  perfectly  and  con- 
structed so  regularly  that  the  sentence  is  thoroughly  transparent 
in  spite  of  its  luxuriant  growth,  we  then  shall  have  enumerated 
the  qualities  which  make  up  the  success  of  Isocrates'  style. 

Before  going  on  to  state  what  may  be  said  on  the  other  side, 
"we  must  here  notice  a  remarkable  element  in  the  smoothness  of 
Isocrates'  composition.  Isocrates  is  the  first  prose  writer  who 
systematically  avoids  the  hiatus  which  arises  when  a  word  end- 
ing in  a  vowel  is  followed  by  another  beginning  with  a  vowel. 
Throughout  the  history  of  Greek  poetry  the  tendency  to  avoid 
hiatus  is  present.  It  may  be  seen  in  epic  and  lyric  poetry ;  it 
becomes  stronger  in  tragedy,  and  strongest  of  all  in  comedy. 
Its  importance  for  us  is  that  it  is  an  indication,  ^yhich  cannot 
be  mistaken,  that  Greek  poetry  was  intended  for  the  ears  of 
hearers,  not  for  the  eyes  of  readers.  It  was  because  hiatus  was 
unpleasant  in  speaking  that  the  poets  were  at  pains  to  avoid  it. 
We  now  find  that  when  Greek  prose  was  on  the  point  of  attain- 
ing perfection  the  same  systematic  avoidance  of  hiatus  appears ; 
and  it  is  instructive  that  it  is  precisely  Isocrates,  who  might  be 
thought  to  inaugurate  a  literati;re  designed  for  a  reading  public, 
who  pays  the  greatest  attention  to  a  point  which  appeals  only 
to  an  audience  and  not  to  a  reader.  The  explanation  is  that, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  time,  works  such  as  those  of 
Isocrates  were  read  aloud  by  one  critic  to  a  company  of  others, 
and  Is  )crates  addressed  himself  to  the  most  critical  and  culti- 
vated audiences  in  Greece.  This  consideration  also  explains  the 
attention  paid  by  Isocrates  to  rhythm,  which  is  of  greater  im- 
portance in  a  work  intended  for  oral  delivery  than  in  one  in- 
tended for  reading. 

But  Isocrates  has  the  defects  of  his  qualities.  The  essence 
of  epideictic  oratory  is  the  development  of  the  form  to  the  neglect 
of  the  matter  of  a  speech,  and  this  neglect  is  a  mistake  which 
inevitably  entails  its  wn  punishment.  The  rotundity  of  Iso- 
crates is  often  procured  only  by  padding,  his  regularity  becomes 
mere  tautology,  his  luxuriant  sentences  identical  propositions. 
Thus  padded  and  bolstered  with  periphrases  and  synonyms,  his 


ORATORY:    EPIDEICTIC  RUETORIC.  397 

thought,  never  vigorous,  succumbs  altogether.  Of  his  antithesis, 
his  parallel  sentences  of  equal  length  or  similar  sound,  Mr.  Jebb  ^ 
has  profoundly  said,  "The  idea  of  all  these  three  'figures'  is  the 
eanie — that  idea  of  mechanical  balance  in  which  the  craving  for 
symmetry  is  apt  to  take  refuge  when  it  is  not  guided  by  a  really 
flexible  instinct  or  by  a  spiritual  sense  of  fitness  and  measure." 

On  the  other  hand,  his  arrangement  can  be  praised  without 
the  reserve  which  it  is  necessary  to  observe  in  speaking  of  hia 
style,  and  between  his  arrangement  and  his  style  a  parallel  may 
to  a  certain  extent  be  drawn.  In  both  there  is  the  same  smooth 
regularity.  The  component  parts  of  a  speech,  as  of  a  sentence, 
are  woven  together  by  him  with  the  greatest  skill,  and  in  both  the 
thought  is  so  set  before  the  reader  that  it  may  be  followed  with 
the  greatest  ease.  The  transitions  from  one  part  of  the  speech 
to  the  next  are  effected  imperceptibly,  whether  by  means  of  the 
antithesis  or  of  the  similarity  between  the  concluding  thought 
of  the  one  part  and  the  introductory  thought  of  the  next  part, 
or  by  the  logical  coherence  of  the  two  parts.  Again,  as  in  the 
period,  the  important  word  which  gives  the  colour  to  the  period 
is  kept  to  the  end,  so  the  main  thesis  of  the  speech,  though 
continually  kept  in  sight,  is  reserved  to  the  last  in  such  a  manner 
that  the  interest  of  the  reader,  who  is  kept  in  a  state  of  expecta- 
tion throughout,  is  maintained  to  the  end.  Finally,  the  unity 
of  the  speech,  attained  by  this  tension  and  by  the  skilful  way 
in  which  the  various  divisions  of  the  speech  are  woven  together, 
is  diversified  by  the  introduction  of  digressions  which  save  the 
uniformity  of  the  speech  from  degenerating  into  monotony. 

Viewing  Isocrates,  then,  as  the  representative  of  epideictic 
rhetoric,^  we  see  that  he  carried  his  theory  of  oratory  to  its 
greatest  development,  and  achieved  the  success  which  is  due  to 
the  artist  who  accomplishes  the  end  at  which  he  aims.  At  the 
same  time,  he  does  not  escape  from  the  defects  inherent  in  the 
rhetoric  of  display.  But  these  defects  do  not  constitute  the 
worst  charge  which  can  be  brought  against  Isocrates.     His  want 

^  A..0.2  65. 

>  All  the  works  of  Isocrates  are  essentially  epideictic,  but  there  are  only 
five  of  his  speeches  which  are  avowedly  epideictic  in  their  object  or  in  the 
eircumstances  under  which  they  were  supposed  to  be  delivered.  Of  these, 
we  may  specially  mention  the  Panegyric  :  the  others  are  the  Panathenaio 
oration  (intended,  as  its  name  implies,  to  be  recited  at  the  Pauathenaea), 
which  contains  the  praises  of  Athens  ;  the  Evagoras,  a  funeral  oration  ;  and 
the  Busiris  and  Encomium  of  Helen.  The  last  two  are  criticisms  intended 
to  show  how  these  hackneyed  subjects  ought  to  be  treated  for  epideictic 
purposes.  (Busiris  was  a  king  of  Egypt,  whose  services  to  mankind  were 
mixed  with  crimes,  and  were  thus  supposed  to  make  a  good  theme  for  show 
oiations.) 


398  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

of  "  a  spiritual  sense  of  fitness  and  measure  "  betrays  itself  not 
only  in  the  mechanical  balance  of  his  sentences  and  in  the 
looseness  of  his  translation  of  thoughts  into  words,  but  also 
reveals  itself  in  the  fact  that  he  did  not  consistently  adhere  to 
his  proper  sphere  of  rhetoric.  He  is  essentially  epideictic  in 
his  rhetoric,  but  he  was  not  content  to  be  avowedly  what  he 
was  in  reality.  With  an  affectation  thoroughly  characteristic 
of  the  man,  he  pretends  that  his  speeches  have  a  practical 
object.  Thus  he  professes  to  aim  at  an  end  which  his  rhetoric 
by  its  very  nature  is  precluded  from  attaining,  and  which  he 
obviously  cares  very  little  about.  What  he  really  hoped  to  do 
was  not  to  persuade  Sparta  to  renounce  her  supremacy  in  Greece, 
or  Athens  to  dismiss  her  subject  states — even  Isocrates  must 
have  known  more  about  practical  politics  than  to  hope  for  that 
— but  he  did  hope  to  establish  his  fame  as  a  prose  writer  and 
to  write  something  worthy  of  that  fame.  Yet  nothing  could 
have  done  more  to  defeat  his  object  or  to  bring  into  prominence 
the  inherent  weaknesses  of  epideictic  rhetoric  than  this  renun- 
ciation of  simplicity  and  directness. 

Any  attempt  to  estimate  Isocrates  as  a  writer  and  to  strike 
the  balance  between  the  conflicting  views  which  have  been  held 
with  regard  to  his  merits  would  be  incomplete  if  it  omitted  to 
notice  the  influence  which  he  exercised  on  succeeding  genera- 
tions of  orators.  If  Isocrates  himself  did  not  reach  the  highest 
level  of  oratory,  he  at  least  paved  the  way  for  Demosthenes. 
And  although  probably,  if  Demosthenes  had  had  no  Isocrates, 
we  should  have  had  a  very  difi'erent  Demosthenes,  the  influence 
of  Isocrates  is  not  to  be  seen  merely  in  the  speeches  of  Demos- 
thenes. It  is  in  Cicero  that  Isocrates  lives  again.  In  the 
speeches  of  Cicero  the  rhetoric  of  Isocrates  appears  with  a 
vigour  and  a  practical  purpose  which  it  lacked  in  Isocrates,  and 
through  Cicero  Isocrates  has  influenced  the  oratory  of  the  world. 

The  influence  of  Isocrates,  however,  was  not  deferred,  but 
took  immediate  effect.  It  is  visible  in  his  contemporaries,  and 
even  in  the  rival  Sophists  of  his  time.  Antisthenes,  Alcida- 
mas,  Polycrates,  Zoilus,  and  Anaximenes  all  show  the  effect 
which  Isocrates'  style  immediately  produced,  in  the  regularity 
of  their  sentences  and  in  their  avoidance  of  hiatus,  figures,  and 
poetical  decoration.  Antisthenes  was  the  son  of  an  Athenian 
citizen  by  a  Thracian  slave.  He  seems  to  have  possessed  a 
wide  range  of  learning,  but  Aristotle  implies  that  he  was  un- 
educated,^ and  Plato,2  with  some   raillery,  calls  him  a  "  late 

*  Metaph,  ix.  3  :  o!  'AtnuTdiveioi.  Kal  ol  oCrwj  draldevroi. 
^  Soph.  35  IB. 


ORATORY  :    EPIDEICTIC  RHETORIC.  399 

learner."  ^  From  this  it  would  seem  that  at  Athens,  at  least,  the 
self-educated  man  played  the  same  part  in  the  intellectual  world 
as  the  self-made  man  in  the  social  world.  Even  the  fragmen 
tary  state  of  our  knowledge,  however,  with  regard  to  Antis 
thenes  cannot  conceal  the  vigour  and  energy  of  his  character. 
At  first  he  became  a  pupil  of  Gorgias.  Then  he  associated 
much  with  such  Sophists  as  Prodicus  and  Hippias.  Then  ho 
attached  himself  with  the  whole  force  of  his  character  to  Socrates, 
and  became  as  strongly  opposed  to  his  earlier  master,  Gorgias, 
as  he  was  now  devoted  to  Socrates.  Finally,  he  became  the 
founder  of  the  Cynic  school  and  author  of  the  tradition  that  it 
is  necessary  to  be  disagreeable  to  be  good.  He  attacked  Plato 
fiercely — the  slave-woman's  son  and  the  Athenian  aristocrat 
would  be  little  likely  to  agree — and  was  probably  at  variance 
with  Aristotle.  Theophrastus,  however,  the  pupil  of  Aristotle, 
Xenophon,  and  Theopompus,  the  historian,  all  greatly  respected 
his  character,  in  spite  of  the  vanity  with  which  he  affected  the 
garb  of  ostentatious  poverty.  Possibly,  there  was  also  a  certain 
kind  of  vanity  in  the  acquisition  and  display  of  the  learning 
which  he,  the  uneducated  man,  the  son  of  the  slave-woman, 
had  obtained  by  his  own  exertions,  as  also  in  his  scathing  de- 
nunciations of  Alcibiades,  the  brilliant  representative  of  the 
aristocracy.  The  same  feeling  prompted  his  choice  of  a  place  in 
which  to  expound  philosophy.  A  philosopher,  who  was  also  an 
Athenian  citizen,  might  teach  in  a  gymnasium,  the  Academy, 
or  the  Lyceion,  where  pure-bred  Athenians  alone  had  the  right 
of  training.  Antisthenes  would  teach  in  the  gymnasium,  the 
Cynosarges,  which  Athenian  pride  had  set  aside  for  the  exer- 
cise of  bastards.  Hence  the  name  of  the  Cynic  philosophy, 
which  in  later  times  false  etymology  referred  to  the  "  doglike  " 
character  of  those  who  professed  this  philosophy.  The  works 
of  Antisthenes  extended  to  moral  philosophy,  natural  science, 

1  To  appreciate  this  the  "late-learner,'' as  depicted  by  Theophrastus  in 
hia  "  Characters,"  should  be  seen.  I  quote  from  Mr.  Jebb's  translation  : 
"  Late-learning  would  seem  to  mean  the  pursuit  of  exercises  for  which  one 
is  too  old.  The  late-learner  is  one  who  will  study  passages  for  recitation 
when  he  is  sixty,  and  break  down  in  repeating  them  over  his  wine.  ,  .  .  At 
a  conjuror's  performance  he  will  sit  out  three  or  four  audiences,  trying  to 
learn  the  songs  by  heart ;  and  when  he  is  initiated  into  the  rites  of  Sabazius, 
he  will  be  eager  to  acquit  himself  best  in  the  eyes  of  the  priest.  Riding  into 
the  country  on  another's  horse,  he  will  practise  bis  horsemanship  by  the 
way,  and  falling,  will  break  his  head.  ,  .  .  He  will  play  at  tableaux  vivants 
with  his  footman  ;  and  will  have  matches  at  archery  and  javelin-throwing 
with  his  children's  attendant,  whom  he  exhoits,  at  the  same  time,  to  learn 
from  him,  as  if  tihe  other  knew  nothing  about  it  either.  At  the  bath  he 
will  wriggle  frequently,  as  if  wrestling,  in  order  that  he  may  appear  educated ; 
and  when  women  are  near,  be  will  practise  dancing-steps,  warbling  his  own 
accompaniment. " 


400  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

logic,  grammar,  the  criticism  of  the  Homeric  poems,  and  various 
polemical  writings.  There  has  come  down  to  us  a  pair  of 
speeches,  the  Ajax  and  Odysseus,  only.  These  are  speeches  only 
in  name  ;  the  two  heroes  state  their  claims  to  the  arms  of  the 
dead  Achilles,  and  the  object  of  the  composition  is  to  set  forth 
the  superiority  of  intellectual  power,  which  Odysseus  is  th*? 
type  of,  over  stupid  strength,  of  which  Ajax  is  the  type. 
Thus  Antisthenes  does  not  profess  to  set  an  example  of  style, 
as  did  the  rhetoricians,  or  such  a  Sophist  as  Isocrates,  nor  did  he 
compose  these  speeches  as  models  of  sophistical  ingenuity  in 
argument.  They  rather  belong  to  his  moral  philosophy,  as  did 
his  dialogue  "  Heracles  or  Midas,"  in  which  he  expounded  hia 
theory  of  strength  and  sobriety  of  character. 

Alcidamas,  born  in  Elaea  of  ^olis,  was,  like  Antisthenes,  a 
pupil  of  Gorgias,  and,  like  Antisthenes,  possessed  an  encyclo- 
paedic knowledge.  Unlike  Antisthenes,  however,  he  gave  in- 
struction in  the  way  usual  among  the  Sophists,  and  did  not 
achieve  any  distinction  as  a  philosopher.  From  other  Sophists 
of  his  time  he  was  distinguished  by  giving  instruction,  not  in 
the  theory,  but  in  the  art  of  speaking.  His  works  may  have 
been  numerous,  but,  exclusive  of  the  two  speeches  which  have 
come  down  to  us  under  his  name,  we  have  only  fragments  of  a 
few.  One  of  these  fragments  is  important.  It  occurred  in  the 
so-called  Messenian  speech.  This  must  have  formed  a  pendant  to 
the  Archidamus  of  Isocrates.  The  latter  represents  the  Spartan, 
the  former  the  Messenian  view  of  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
Messenians  from  the  Spartan  yoke.  In  the  speech  of  Alci- 
damus  occurred  the  words,  "  Freedom  God  granted  all  men  ;  no 
man  has  Nature  made  a  slave."  This  shows  that  already  men  of 
a  daring  mind  were  denying  the  assumptions  on  which  the 
defence  of  slavery  was  based,  and  is  a  credit  to  the  Sophist  for 
ever.  The  two  speeches  which  have  come  down  to  us  under 
his  name  are  the  Odysseus  (in  which  Odysseus  accuses  Palamedes 
of  treason)  and  that  on  the  Sophists.  Most  modern  critics  are 
of  opinion  that  the  two  speeches  are  not  by  the  same  author, 
and  if  either  is  by  Alcidamas,  it  is  that  on  the  Sophists.  This 
speech  is  a  polemic  against  those  Sophists  (particularly  Isocrates) 
who  teach  their  pupils  only  to  write  speeches,  instead  of  prac- 
tising them  in  extempore  speeches.  Alcidamas  brings  forward 
various  arguments  in  support  of  his  attack,  such  as  that  a  man 
who  is  evidently  delivering  from  memory  a  prepared  speech 
becomes  an  object  of  suspicion  to  his  audience ;  written  speeches 
cannot  be  remembered  entirely ;  hence  improvisation  on  some 
points,  and  consequently  unevenness  in  the  total  effect;   the 


oratory:  epideictic  rhetoric.  401 

memory  of  the  speaker,  further,  is  likely  to  betray  him  ;  and  a 
prepared  speech  cannot  adapt  itself  to  the  sudden  needs  of  the 
moment ;  it  has  no  more  movement  than  a  statue.  The  opinion 
of  ancient  critics  was  not  favourable  to  the  oratory  of  Alcidamas, 
and  this  speech  is  open  to  criticism  on  several  points.  It  has 
no  systematic  development  in  its  argument.  The  style  is  not 
that  of  a  practical  speech,  nor  is  the  expression.  The  periods, 
however,  are  shaped  with  regularity,  and  not  much  below  those 
of  Isocrates.  The  adverse  criticism,  too,  which  Aristotle^  passes 
on  the  metaphors  of  Alcidamas  is  such  as  to  illustrate  the 
difference  between  modern  taste  and  that  of  Aristotle  rather 
than  to  secure  our  assent.  Thus  Aristotle  condemns  Alcidamas 
for  terming  the  Odyssey  "  a  mirror  of  human  life."  "Wet 
sweat,"  however,  and  similar  redundancies,  Aristotle  justly 
blames.  The  speech  of  Odysseus  against  Palamedes  for  treason 
is  weak  in  matter,  but  there  is  nothing  in  its  style  to  show  that 
it  may  not  have  belonged  to  the  time,  if  it  was  not  the  work  of 
Alcidamas. 

Polycrates,  an  Athenian,  was  also  a  contemporary  of,  but  a 
younger  man  than,  Isocrates.  Like  Alcidamas,  he,  as  a  Sophist, 
professed  to  give  an  education  in  practical  speaking.  He  pro- 
bably devoted  more  attention  to  the  matter  than  the  style  of  his 
speeches  ;  and  his  choice  of  subjects,  such  as  a  laudation  of 
Clytemestra,  shows  the  ingenuity  and  paradoxical  nature  of  his 
arguments.  Other  works  were  laudations  of  Agamemnon,  of  a 
Mouse,  of  Voting-pebbles,^  &c.  None  of  his  works  have  been 
preserved.  Most  of  our  knowledge  about  him  comes  from  the 
Busiris  of  Isocrates,  in  which  Isocrates  criticises  the  way  in 
which  Polycrates  treats  the  story  of  Busiris.  The  criticism  is 
severe,  and  probably  deserved. 

Zoilus,  the  famous  Homeromastix,  who  was  bom  B.C.  400,  and 
died  B.C.  330,  was  a  pupil  of  Polycrates.  Like  Antisthenes,  he 
possessed  a  wide  knowledge  of  Homer,  but  he  used  it  to  ridicule, 
not  to  illuminate  his  author.  He  objected  to  Homer  that  it 
was  absurd  to  talk  of  pigs  weeping,  as  the  poet  does  when 
Odysseus'  companions  are  turned  into  swine  by  Circe.  The 
dogs  which  Apollo  (the  plague-god)  first  destroys,  in  Iliad  i.,  are 
email  deer  for  a  deity.   "  WeU-greaved  companions  perished,  from 

^  Rhet.  iii.  3. 

*  Probably  also  of  salt  and  of  ^o/i^vXiol  (which  would  seem  to  mean,  not 
bnmble-bees,  as  some  have  imagined,  but  a  kind  of  drinking  vessel.  Schol. 
to  ApoU.  Rhod.  ii.  569 :  ^ofj-^vXr]  ddos  fieXicruTis,  Kai  woTt)piov  S^  elSosi 
in  AvTia'depris  wapaSiBuxTiv  icri  bk  tovto  CTevoTpaxii^ov.  Pollux,  vi.  98  an(| 
X.  68,  says  that  it  was  in  the  Protrepticon  of  AntisthencB.  Cf.  also  Ath.  xi. 
784D  and  xiii.  485A). 

S  0 


402  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

each  ship  six."i  "As  though  at  word  of  command,"  sayi 
Zoilus.  In  the  same  strain  he  wrote  a  eulogy  of  Polyphemus. 
His  most  serious  work  was  a  history  from  the  origin  of  the  goda 
to  the  time  of  Philip.  He  made  no  contributions  to  the  advance 
of  style. 

Anaximenes,  who  was  born  at  Lampsacus  in  b.c.  380,  and 
died  B.C.  320,  was  a  pupil  of  Zoilus.  Like  his  master,  he  was 
a  Sophist  and  a  rhetorician,  and  he  composed  a  history  of  the 
same  period  as  Zoilus.  Amongst  his  writings  we  hear  of  a  work 
on  Homer,  an  encomium  of  Helen,  deliberative  speeches,  and 
we  have  fragments  apparently  of  some  work  on  philosophy. 
Most  interesting,  however,  is  his  work  on  the  theory  of  speak- 
ing, the  "  Rhetoric  to  Alexander."  The  Alexander  is  Alexander 
the  Great,  who  was  a  pupil  of  Anaximenes.  The  work,  doubtless, 
owes  its  preservation  to  the  mistake  that  it  was  the  work  of 
Aristotle.  It  is,  however,  unscientific  in  spirit,  and  confirms  the 
adverse  verdict  of  ancient  critics  on  Anaximenes.  In  his  ocean 
of  words  the  drops  of  sense  are  few.  Compared,  however,  with  the 
Rhetoric  of  Aristotle  it  has  the  advantage  of  being  a  distinctly 
practical  work. 

Before  proceeding  to  a  consideration  of  the  greatest  of  orators, 
we  must  say  a  few  words  on  Isaeus.  The  widening  rift  between 
the  interests  of  the  citizen  and  the  interests  of  the  man,  which 
was  at  once  the  condition  and  the  consequence  of  the  approach 
of  Athens'  intellectual  empire  of  the  world,  aff"ected  Isaeus  as  it 
affected  Isocrates.  That  is  to  say,  it  enabled  both  to  pursue 
their  vocation  without  taking  part  in  politics.  In  the  case  of 
Isocrates,  indeed,  this  fact  is  concealed  from  us  by  his  pan- 
Hellenism.  But  the  pan-Hellenism  of  Isocrates,  so  far  from 
being  a  genuine  political  factor,  was  merely  a  literary  cloak, 
which  served  to  conceal  his  political  insignificance.  Isaeus,  on 
the  other  hand,  had  no  connection,  and  did  not  pretend  to  have 
any  connection,  with  politics  ;  and  as  his  speeches,  being  com- 
posed on  behalf  of  others,  give  us  no  information  with  regard  to 
himself,  we  know  nothing  about  his  life.  It  is  uncertain  whethel 
he  was  an  Athenian  or  a  metic,  and  there  are  stories  of  his  per- 
sonal connection  with  Isocrates  and  Demosthenes.  Roughly, 
his  literary  career  may  be  dated  B.C.  390-350. 

The  interest  of  Isaeus  for  us  is  that  he  carries  on  the  tradi- 
tion of  practical  oratory — whereas  Isocrates  represents  literary 
rhetoric — and  constitutes  the  transition  from  Lysias  to  Demos- 
thenes. In  point  of  diction  Isaeus  resembles  Lysias.  He  avoids 
strange  or  poetical  words,  or  words  not  in  ordinary  Attic  use ; 
1  Od.  X.  60. 


ORATORY  :    EPI  DEICTIC  RHETORIC.  403 

though,  so  iir  as  there  is  any  difference  between  the  two 
writers,  Lysia?  writes  the  purer  Attic.  The  same  relation  exists 
between  them  with  respect  to  the  brevity  which  is  regarded  as 
one  of  Lysias'  merits.  With  regard  to  composition,  we  have 
seen  that  although  Lysias  frequently  relieves  his  periods  by  the 
insertion  of  more  loosely  constructed  sentences,  still  his  char- 
acteristic combination  of  two  or  three  periods  into  a  greater 
whole  recurs  with  a  persistence  that  imparts  a  certain  air  of 
stiffness  to  his  style.  Isaeus  is  much  more  free  in  his  com- 
position, and  this  difference  between  the  two  logographers  is 
important,  because  it  implies  something  deeper  and  beyond  the 
mere  difference  in  style. 

Well-rounded  periods  and  formal  sentences  are  beautiful, 
but  they  are  not  business-like,  and  Isaeus  was  a  much  more 
thoroughly  professional  man  than  Lysias.  Those  speeches  of 
Isaeus  which  have  come  down  to  us  relate  entirely  to  testa- 
mentary cases.  This  is  partly  due  to  the  habit  ancient  com- 
mentators had  of  arranging  the  speeches  of  an  orator  according 
to  their  subject-matter,  and  partly  to  the  fact  that  that  depart- 
ment in  which  an  orator  excelled  was  most  likely  to  survive,  as 
was  the  case  also  with  Antiphon,  whose  extant  speeches  all  relate 
to  cases  of  homicide.  Now,  Athenian  testamentary  law  was  of  a 
complex  nature,  and  the  mere  knowledge  that  Isseus  was  strong 
in  this  branch  of  the  law  would  be  sufficient,  even  if  we  had 
not  the  speeches  themselves  to  confirm  it,  to  show  that  Isaeus 
possessed  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  law  generally. 

In  the  practical  and  professional  power  resulting  from  this 
knowledge  of  the  law  lies  the  difference  between  Isaeus  and 
Lysias.  Lysias  tells  his  story  with  such  winning  simplicity,  that 
the  mere  statement  of  his  case  is  enough  to  win  over  the  judges 
to  his  side.  Isaeus,  although  he,  too,  like  Lysias,  pays  much 
attention  to  ethos,  continually  appeals  to  the  intelligence  of  his 
hearers  with  the  confidence  of  a  man  whose  force  of  mind  and 
professional  knowledge  enable  him  to  compel  the  assent  of  any 
one  who  will  follow  his  argument.  This  technical  mastery,^ 
which  appears  in  Isaeus  side  by  side  with  the  simpler  devices  of 
the  "  plain  "  style,  not  only  makes  the  difference  between  Isaeu8 
and  Lysias,  but  also  makes  Isaeus  the  forerunner  of  Demos- 
thenes. The  "  figures  of  thought  " — feigned  perplexity  or  sur- 
prise or  questions — which  appear  rarely  in  Lysias,  more  fre- 
quently in  Isaeus,  and  still  more  frequently  in  Demosthenes,  are 
but  the  form  in  which  this  confidence  naturally  finds  expres- 
sion.   Being  the  outcome  of  qualities  essentially  practical  rather 


404  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

than  epideictic,  these  "  figures  "  both  in  themselves  give  a  bnsi* 
ness-like  colour  to  a  speech,  and,  as  we  started  by  saying,  by 
breaking  up  the  rounded  periods  of  oratory  give  a  speech  the 
freedom  of  movement  requisite  for  meeting  at  every  point  the 
argument  of  an  adversary. 

Finally,  this  freedom  of  movement  is  further  facilitated  by 
another  means,  which,  while  on  the  one  hand  it  differentiates 
the  oratory  of  Isaeus  from  that  of  Lysias,  and  brings  it  nearer  to 
the  perfection  of  Demosthenes,  on  the  other  hand  constitutes 
the  resemblance  between  Isaeus  and  Isocrates,  which  may  either 
be  the  origin  or  a  confirmation  of  the  story  that  makes  the 
former  a  pupil  of  the  latter  orator.  In  Lysias,  a  speech,  when 
it  is  divided,  is  always  divided  into  the  same  four  divisions : 
preface,  narrative,  argument,  and  epilogue.  The  division  of 
Isocrates,  on  the  other  hand,  though  tending  to  the  same  regu- 
larity, is  less  segmentary  and  more  organic.  In  Isaeus,  how- 
ever, a  speech  is  not  divided  according  to  rule  or  in  an  invari- 
able manner,  but  suited  to  the  needs  of  the  individual  case. 
This  flexibility  of  division  is  both  due  to  and  a  proof  of  the 
more  practical  quality  of  Isaeus'  oratory.  A  speech  dealing  in 
the  thorougli  and  argumentative  manner  of  Isaeus  with  abstruse 
and  complex  and  legal  questions,  would  frequently  be  impos- 
sible to  follow  if  the  formal  separation  of  statement  from 
argument  were  observed.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  necessary  for 
him  to  divide  his  statement  into  its  natural  sections,  and  at  the 
conclusion  of  each  section  deal  with  the  argument  and  proofs 
pertaining  to  that  section. 

With  this  last  instance  of  the  way  in  which  the  practical 
needs  of  the  law-courts,  whereby  the  art  of  rhetoric  was  called 
into  existence,  continued  to  determine  the  development  of  sys- 
tematic oratory,  we  may  leave  Isaeus,  and  proceed  to  Demos- 
thenes. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

DEMOSTHENES  :   FIRST   PERIOD. 

XoT  having  any  pre-existing  literature  of  another  nation  to 

impart  an  unnatural  direction  to  its  growth,  Greek  literatu-re 
developed  freely  and  on  its  own  lines.  The  result  of  this  free- 
dom is  a  simplicity  of  development  which  in  its  main  outlines 
is  easy  to  trace.     The  conditions  which  produce  ami  explain 


ORATORY  :    DEMOSTHENES.  4O5 

any  stage  iu  this  evolution  are  to  be  found  in  the  previous 
development  of  Greek  literature  itself,  and  have  not  to  lie  sought 
elsewhere.  The  drama  in  two  of  its  main  departments — the 
choric  and  tlie  narrative  — presupposes  the  development  of  lyric 
and  epic  poetry.  Oratory  also  in  two  of  its  main  departments 
— the  argument  and  the  narrative — implies  the  previous  de- 
velopment of  dialectic  and  history.  So  too  within  the  history 
of  oratory  itself,  the  highest  form  is  only  evolved  when  the  lower 
forms  have  completed  their  development  each  in  its  own  direc- 
tion. 

In  the  chapters  on  Antiphon,  Lysias,  and  Isocrates,  we  have 
seen  that  each  of  these  orators  achieved  artistic  success  by 
realising  his  own  theory  of  his  art.  But  in  each  case  the  con- 
centration of  effort  necessary  for  carrying  through  the  new 
theory  was  obtained  only  at  the  cost  of  neglecting  other  qualities 
equally  essential  to  oratory  of  the  highest  kind.  The  plain  style 
of  Ly.^ias  is  the  most  perfect  vehicle  of  ethos,  but  is  incom- 
patible with  pathos,  while  the  oratory  of  Antiphon,  impressive 
as  it  is,  makes  no  attempt  at  ethos ;  both  styles,  however,  are 
eminently  adapted  for  practical  purposes,  and  thus  are  widely 
distinguished  from  the  beautiful  epideictic  of  Isocrates.  Thus 
the  resources  of  the  art  had  been  ascertained  in  different  direc- 
tions by  different  explorers,  but  it  yet  remained  for  one  man, 
bringing  to  bear  all  these  resources,  to  unite  in  himself  the 
excellences  of  aU  three  styles;  and  that  man  was  Demos- 
thenes. 

But  although  the  history  of  Greek  literature  was  not  influenced 
in  its  course  by  the  action  of  any  foreign  literature,  it  was  in- 
fluenced by  the  social  and  political  history  of  Greece  itself,  and 
in  no  department  could  this  influence  be  expected  to  operate 
with  more  effect  than  in  that  of  oratory.  The  first  attempts  of 
even  untutored  eloquence  are  only  possible  on  the  condition  of 
political  freedom.  The  level  of  oratory  can  only  rise  as  the 
general  culture  of  society  rises ;  and  finally,  the  greatest  oratory 
demands  the  greatest  themes.  In  the  case  of  Demosthenes  these 
external  conditions  co-operated  with  the  internal  development 
of  oratory. 

In  the  first  place,  by  the  time  of  Demosthenes,  not  only  had 
the  general  culture  of  the  Athenians  been  considerably  elevated 
by  the  educational  labours  of  the  Sophists,  and  their  natural 
faculty  of  artistic  criticism  developed  to  an  unparalleled  extent 
by  the  sculptors  and  dramatists  of  Pericles'  day,  but  also  in  the 
special  domain  of  oratory  itself,  the  law-courts,  which  had  first 
called  oratory  as  an  art  into  existence,  had  made  the  Athenian! 


406  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

every  day  more  exacting  judges  of  an  orator's  merits.  The 
consciousness  of  this  unsparing  criticism  was  ever  present  to  the 
orator,  whether  in  the  law-court  or  in  the  ecclesia,  and  con- 
tinually drove  him  to  look  more  and  more  carefully  to  the  form 
as  well  as  to  the  matter  of  his  speech.  Kowhere  does  thia 
reaction  of  the  audience  on  the  speaker  betray  itself  to  the 
modern  reader  with  more  startling  effect  than  in  the  speeches 
of  Demosthenes  and  ^schines:on  the  Crown.  At  a  moment 
when  a  policy  involving  the  fate  of  the  nation  was  on  trial,  in 
the  heat  of  a  conflict  entailing  the  political  annihilation  of  one 
or  other  of  the  combatants,  these  great  orators  in  their  greatest 
speeches  can  criticise  each  others'  language  and  delivery. 

Further  evidence  of  the  minute  criticism  to  which  a  speaker's 
style  was  at  this  time  subjected,  and  of  the  effect  which  this 
criticism  had  on  the  speaker,  is  to  be  found  in  the  care  with 
which  Demosthenes  polished  and  revised  his  speeches.  Thus 
we  find  that,  for  instance,  our  copy  of  the  speech  on  the  Em- 
bassy is  not  open  to  the  objections  which  -^schines  brings 
against  some  of  its  expressions.  The  explanation  is  that  De- 
mosthenes in  revising  his  speech  accepted  his  opponent's  criti 
cisms  as  just,  and  corrected  his  language  accordingly.  Again, 
we  find  that  in  some  of  Demosthenes'  speeches  whole  sections 
occur  which  neglect  the  rules  that  he  elsewhere  observes  in 
avoiding  hiatus ;  which  shows  that  his  practice  was  to  first 
write  out  a  speech  and  then  go  through  it  again,  carefully  re- 
adjusting those  collocations  of  words  M'hich  presented  a  hiatus, 
though  for  some  reason  or  other  he  has  not  thus  corrected  these 
particular  sections.  Another  indication  of  careful  revision  is  to 
be  found  in  those  passages  in  which  he  pretends  to  anticipate 
his  adversary's  arguments.  Such  passages  are  really  replies  to 
the  opposing  speech,  and  have  been  inserted  subsequently  in 
order  to  make  Demosthenes'  own  speech  complete  at  all  points. 
Finally,  the  practice  of  repeating  in  one  speech  whole  passages 
which  have  been  previously  used  in  some  other  speech  finds  its 
explanation  in  the  care  with  which  the  author  originally  elabo- 
rated those  passages.  If  Demosthenes  repeats  a  passage  word 
for  word,  it  is  evidence  that  he  is  of  opinion  the  topic  treated 
therein  has  received  the  best  and  most  artistic  treatment  which 
he  can  give  it,  and  it  is  in  accordance  with  the  true  Greek 
instinct  that  he  refuses  to  try  to  "  paint  the  lily."  At  the  same 
time,  however,  it  is  true  that  he  sometimes  himself  excuses  thia 
repetition  on  the  ground  of  a  change  of  audience. 

These  instances  may  suffice  to  show  how  the  general  culture 
of  society  reacted  on  the  oratory  of  the  time,  and  we  may 


ORATORY  :    DEMOSTHENES.  4O7 

now  consider  the  action  of  a  different  set  of  external  circum- 
stances. "With  Demosthenes  we  return  to  the  domain  of 
practical  political  oratory.  As  we  have  explained  in  a  previous 
chapter,  logographers  had  inducement  to  circulate  their  speeches, 
which  served  both  to  advertise  their  author  and  to  instruct  his 
pupils ;  but  statesmen  were  prevented  from  following  this 
example  by  the  fear  of  being  classed  with  the  Sophists.  The 
result  is  that  the  typical  orators  of  the  canon  up  to  the  time 
of  Demosthenes  are  logographers  or  the  Sophist  Isocrates. 
Demosthenes,  however,  although  a  statesman,  did  publish  his 
speeches.  The  example  of  Isocrates  as  a  pamphleteer  sufficed 
to  show  him  that  the  influence  of  a  speech  might  be  made  to 
extend  over  a  greater  area  than  merely  that  filled  by  those  who 
heard  the  speech,  and  it  was  for  this  practical  object  that  he 
circulated  his  speeches.  Isocrates,  on  the  other  hand,  was  never 
more  than  the  literary  artist.  His  themes  indeed  sound  great, 
but  they  have  no  practical  meaning,  while  the  subjects  of  Isaeus 
or  Lysias  are  certainly  practical,  but  not  being  the  highest 
subjects,  do  not  admit  of  the  highest  treatment.  The  part  of 
Demosthenes,  however,  was  cast  in  the  last  act  of  the  drama  of 
Greek  freedom.  Once  more  a  crisis  as  great  as  that  of  the 
Persian  wars  had  occurred,  and  once  more  a  field  of  action  was 
thrown  open  to  oratory  as  great  as  that  opened  to  the  eloquence 
of  Themistocles.  The  events  of  the  time  were  great,  and  they 
give  a  corresponding  elevation  to  the  oratory  of  the  time. 
Above  all,  in  Demosthenes  we  have  the  nobility  and  grandeur 
which  a  share  in  the  struggle  that  saved,  if  not  the  liber- 
ties, at  any  rate  the  honour  of  his  country  was  able  to  impart 
to  the  oratory  of  the  patriot. 

The  internal  development  of  Greek  rhetoric,  and  the  external 
circumstances,  social  and  political,  at  this  time,  formed  an  en- 
vironment favourable  to  the  growth  of  the  highest  oratory ;  but 
the  environment  is  not  everything.  It  must  have  something  to 
environ,  and  for  this  something  we  must  look  to  the  character 
of  Demosthenes.  Of  the  enormous  care  which  he  bestowed  ou 
his  speeches  we  have  already  seen  some  instances.  To  this 
''capacity  for  taking  pains"  we  must  add  what  is  perhaps  but 
another  manifestation  of  the  same  power — his  strength  of  char- 
acter. He  started  with  physical  incapacities  much  greater  than 
those  before  which  Isocrates  succumbed.  His  gesticulation  waa 
awkward,  his  voice  weak,  and  his  lisp  distressing.  But  he  did 
not,  like  Isocrates,  surrender  to  these  natural  defects.  The 
stories  which  are  told  of  him  in  this  respect  are  not  incredible ; 
and  even  if  they  are  not  true,  they  show  how  much  his  biogra- 


408  HISTORY  OF  GKEEK  LITERATURE. 

phers  were  impressed  by  the  strength  of  liis  iron  will.  To  euro 
himself  of  an  awkward  trick  of  shrugging  up  one  shoulder,  ha 
practised  speaking  with  a  sword  so  suspended  that  the  peccant 
shoulder  when  moved  was  pierced  by  it.  To  gain  presence  of 
mind  in  the  face  of  a  tumult  he  matched  his  voice  against  the 
sea-waves,  and  to  gain  clearness  of  articulation  he  practised 
speaking  with  his  mouth  full  of  pebbles.  For  the  purposes  of 
his  studies  in  declamation  he  constructed  an  underground  cham- 
ber, which  was  still  pointed  out  in  Plutarch's  time;  and  in  order 
that  he  might  not  be  tempted  to  desert  these  studies,  he  would 
shave  half  his  head.  He  remained  for  a  month  at  a  time  in 
the  underground  chamber.  The  importance  which  he  attached 
to  a  good  delivery  is  illustrated  by  his  saying,  that  of  the  three 
things  necessary  for  an  orator,  the  lirst  was  delivery,  the  second 
delivery,  and  the  third  delivery.  To  a  man  who  complained  to 
him  of  having  been  assaulted,  he  calmly  said,  "You  have  not 
been  assaulted."  "What !"  shrieked  the  man,  "  not  assaulted!" 
"  Ah  ! "  said  Demosthenes,  "  now  you  speak  like  a  man  who  has 
been  assaulted." 

That  the  best  teacher  of  rhetoric  is  the  pen  was  a  fact  with 
which  Demosthenes  seems  to  have  been  acquainted,  for  he  was 
assiduous  in  committing  to  writing  any  conversation  he  had 
heard,  or  anything  else  which  was  likely  to  be  of  use.  He 
worked  far  into  the  night,  and  for  longer  hours  than  any  work- 
man in  Athens.  It  was  said  that  more  oil  than  wine  went  to 
the  composition  of  his  speeches,  for  he  was  a  water-drinker. 
A  life  of  this  studious  description  seems  incompatible  with 
the  unsupported  aspersions  sometimes  made  on  his  morality. 
It  is  true  that  he  committed  the  crime  of  wearing  comfortable 
clothing,  but  our  views  on  luxury  are  so  different  from  those 
of  the  ancient  world,  that  we  can  scarcely  in  the  present  day 
regard  fine  linen  as  a  good  and  sufficient  reason  for  taking 
away  a  man's  character. 

In  the  following  pages  it  will  be  impossible  to  deal  with 
the  political  side  of  Demosthenes'  life,  and  yet  to  abstract  the 
politics  from  Demosthenes'  speeches  is  more  unsatisfactory  even 
than  are  most  attempts  to  consider  the  form  apart  from  the 
matter.  Demosthenes  is  above  all  things  intensely  practical ; 
he  never  sinks  into  the  mere  literary  artist.  He  never  writes 
for  display  ;  he  has  only  one  preoccupation,  and  that  is  his 
subject.  As  Fenelon  said  of  him,  "  Tout  est  dit  pour  le  salut 
commun,  aucun  mot  n'est  pour  I'orateur."  But  we  must  endea- 
vour to  put  ourselves  at  the  same  purely  literary  standpoint 
which  Machines  must  have  occupied  when,  in  his  banishment, 


ORATORY  :    DEMOSTHENES.  409 

he  could  first  read  out  to  his  pupils,  with  the  appreciation  of  ar, 
artist,  the  very  speech  in  which  Demosthenes  covered  him  with 
infamy,  and  could  then  remark,  "Ah!  hut  you  should  have 
heard  the  beast  himself." 

Demosthenes,  the  son  of  Demosthenes,  of  the  deme  Pseania, 
was  born  abo"at  B.C.  383.  His  father,  who  was  a  weapon  manu- 
facturer and  possessed  considerable  wealth,  died  when  Demos- 
thenes M-as  only  seven  years  old.  Demosthenes  was  a  weakly 
child,  with  an  aversion  to  outdoor  sports,  and  was  permitted  by 
his  mother  to  indulge  this  aversion,  so  that  he  grew  up  in  entire 
ignorance  of  the  gymnasium  and  the  hunting  which  constituted 
a  large  portion  of  the  education  of  the  ordinary  young  Athenian. 
This  fact  is  doubly  important,  as  showing  both  that  Demos- 
thenes' want  of  physical  courage  was  innate,  and  that  he  did 
not  even  go  through  the  ordinary  physical  training  which  might 
to  some  extent  have  remedied  the  defect. 

Demosthenes'  guardians,  if  they  were  not  guilty  of  fraud, 
were  at  least  extremely  negligent  in  the  discharge  of  their 
duties,  and  Demosthenes,  when  quite  a  boy,  probably  discovered 
that  his  inheritance  would  be  much  smaller  than  it  ought  to 
have  been  when  it  reached  him.  From  this  dates  the  determi- 
nation, which  he  stuck  to  with  all  the  pertinacity  of  his  deter- 
mined nature,  to  become  an  orator  in  order  to  seek  for  himself, 
and  by  himself,  redress  from  the  law.  That  he  had  any  lessons 
from  Isocrates  is  improbable,  although  it  is  clear  that  he  must 
have  studied  Isocrates'  published  speeches  with  care. 

From  Isaeus,  however,  he  did  receive  instruction.  Isseus  was 
a  profound  and  practised  lawyer,  and  Demosthenes  was  well 
advised  in  becoming  his  pupQ ;  for  the  prolonged  litigation  in 
which  he  became  involved  with  his  guardians  was  such  as  to 
require,  on  Demosthenes'  part,  a  more  than  ordinary  acquaint- 
ance with  the  law.  The  power  which  Demosthenes  caught 
from  Isaeus  of  thoroughly  grasping  a  subject,  and  of  then  treat- 
ing it  with  a  freedom  which  disregarded  both  technical  divisions 
and  artificial  deduction,  is  one  which  is  as  conspicuous  in  his 
political  as  in  his  forensic  speeches. 

Demosthenes'  literary  career  may  be  divided  into  three 
periods.  The  first  stretches  from  B.C.  363,  the  date  of  his  first 
action  against  his  guardians,  to  B.C.  359  ;  the  second  from  B.a 
355  to  B.C.  341,  and  the  third  from  b.c.  330  to  b.c.  323. 

The  first  period  begins  in  b.c.  363  with  the  speeches  against 
Aphobus  and  Onetor.  Although  Demosthenes  was  successful 
in  obtaining  verdicts  against  his  guardians,  his  patrimony  was 
for  the  most  part  gone  beyond  recovery,  and  he  found  hunseli 


4  I  O  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

compelled,  in  B.C.  359,  to  resort  to  logography  in  order  to  gain 
a  living. 

The  speeches  for  the  Naval  Crown  and  against  Callicles  and 
Spudias,  together  with  the  speeches  delivered  in  his  litigation 
with  his  guardians,  make  up  the  total  composed  by  Demos- 
thenes in  the  first  period  of  his  literary  career.  This  period  is 
distinguished  from  his  later  style  by  the  characteristics  of  youth. 
Demosthenes  was  only  twenty  years  of  age  when  he  delivered 
his  first  speech  against  his  guardians,  and  only  twenty-four 
when  he  became  a  logographer.  Most  characteristic  of  youth 
is  a  tendency  to  exaggeration.  This  shows  itself  to  a  certain 
extent  in  his  language,  which  is  sometimes  too  strong,  but  more 
unmistakably  in  his  avoidance  of  hiatus.  In  the  later  periods, 
although  he  normally  avoids  hiatus  between  two  words  in  the 
same  sentence,  he  allows  it  at  the  end  of  a  colon,  just  as  in 
tragedy  hiatus  may  be  allowed  between  the  end  of  one  line  and 
the  beginning  of  the  next.  It  is,  however,  the  peculiar  charac- 
teristic of  the  period,  B.C.  363-359,  that  not  even  this  exception 
is  allowed  to  occur. 

Akin  to  exaggeration  is  want  of  self-control.  Demosthenes* 
nature  was  excitable  even  beyond  the  excitability  of  the  ordi- 
nary Southern  temperament.  The  ardour  with  which  he  threw 
himself  into  everything,  and  the  enthusiasm  by  which  he  was 
liable  to  be  carried  away  in  speaking,  are  instances  of  one 
extreme,  that  of  exaltation ;  while  the  other  extreme  to  which 
his  imagination  bore  him  is  at  any  rate  illustrated,  if  it  is  not 
proved,  by  the  story  that  in  his  flight  from  the  field  of  Chaero- 
nea  he  roared  out  "Mercy !"  when  he  was  caught  by  a  bramble- 
bush.  This  was  the  nature  which  he  had  to  keep,  and  did  keep, 
under  control  by  the  force  of  will.  But  this  control,  even  in 
matters  artistic,  did  not  come  at  first  or  without  effort ;  and 
whereas  in  his  later  speeches  he  makes  extremely  sparing  use  of 
appeals  for  compassion,  in  the  speeches  against  Aphobus  there 
is  a  marked  absence  of  such  self-control. 

If  exaggeration  and  want  of  self-control  are  youthful  faults, 
imitation  is  equally  characteristic  of  the  immature  writer,  who, 
because  his  own  style  is  as  yet  unformed,  has  not  the  courage 
to  walk  his  own  way,  but  guides  himself  by  the  example  of  a 
master.  This  is  what  happened  in  the  case  of  Demosthenes 
with  regard  to  Isseus.  The  speeches  against  Aphobus  were 
modelled  on  the  speech  of  Isseus  or.  the  inheritance  of  Ciron. 
Not  only  are  the  common-places  often  identical  in  both  cases, 
but  the  treatment  of  Isaeus  is  imitated  by  Demosthenes.  H« 
does  not  relegate  the  narrative  into  a  distinct  part  of  the  speech. 


ORATORY  :    DEMOSTHENES.  4  I  I 

but  interweaves  it  with  the  argument  and  proofs,  and  even  (in 
the  second  speech)  with  the  epilogue.  Moreover,  he  shows  the 
same  freedom  iu  recapitulation  as  his  master,  and  even  a  greater 
skill  in  weaving  the  various  parts  of  the  speech  together. 

The  diffidence  which  leads  to  imitation  further  shows  itself  in 
Demosthenes'  language.  A  writer  who  is  not  confident  in  his 
own  powers  will  not  call  a  trivial  thing  by  its  trivial  name,  and 
hesitates  to  quit  the  safe  paths  of  respectability  so  far  as  to 
use  a  familiar  expression  or  a  vivacious  exclamation.  In  this 
respect  the  difference  between  the  first  period  of  Demosthenes 
and  his  later  styles  is  marked-  In  his  earlier  style  he  does  not 
know  the  capacities  of  his  art  in  this  direction,  and  is  so  far  cut 
off  from  the  variety,  the  life  and  movement  of  his  mature  style. 

Another  concomitant  of  immaturity  is  the  fact  that  the  feel- 
ing of  artistic  propriety  has  not  yet  had  sufficient  exercise  to 
become  a  second  nature.  The  feeling  is  there,  for  Demosthenes 
was  from  the  beginning  an  artist,  but  it  is  not  yet  sufficiently 
developed.  This  is  most  obvious  in  his  inability  to  resist  the 
temptations  of  the  epideictic  style.  The  stringency  of  his  rules 
on  hiatus  in  this  period,  which  we  have  already  noticed,  is  one 
sure  indication  of  the  influence  of  Isocrates.  Another  instance 
is  to  be  seen  in  his  use  of  epideictic  figures,  assonance,  parallel- 
isms, and  antithesis  of  all  kinds.  This  kind  of  writing,  un- 
suited  as  it  is  to  practical  deliberate  speeches,  is  still  more  out 
of  harmony  with  forensic  oratory  ;  and  that  Demosthenes  should 
have  used  it  in  the  speeches  against  Aphobus,  although  very 
natural  in  a  young  writer,  is  proof  that  he  was  not  yet  in  full 
possession  of  the  fine  feeling  which  subsequently  enabled  him 
to  adapt  his  style  to  his  subject  with  perfect  artistic  propriety. 
It  is,  however,  instructive  to  notice  how  soon  Demosthenes 
developed  this  power.  Even  the  speech  on  the  Naval  Crown 
shows  a  great  advance. 

The  same  mistake  and  the  same  early  discovery  of  the  mis- 
take is  obvious  in  the  structure  of  the  periods  of  this  time.  In 
the  speeches  against  Aphobus,  the  sentences  have  the  luxuri- 
ant length,  the  regularity,  and  the  balance  of  Isocrates,  and 
are  consequently  unsuited  to  the  practical  purposes  of  a 
court  of  law.  But  even  in  the  speech  against  Onetor  an 
Hirfrovement  is  visible  ;  the  speech  is  lighter  and  the  com- 
position better  rounded.  In  this  speech,  too,  Demosthenes 
begins  to  free  himself  from  the  influence  of  Thucydides  which 
is  visible  in  the  speeches  against  Aphobus  in  a  certain  stiffness 
and  want  of  smoothness. 

A  perfect  adjustment  cf  means  to  ends  comes  only  with  ex> 


412  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

perience,  and  the  lack  of  this  adjustment  is  farther  evident  in 
the  absence  of  etlios  in  the  speeches  against  Aphobus.  These 
speeches  are  very  far  from  leaving,  or  attempting  to  leave,  the 
impression  of  an  inexperienced  youth  making  his  first  untutored 
attempts  at  oratory.  A  character  of  this  kind  imparted  to  the 
speeches  would  have  been  excellently  adapted  to  secure  success, 
but  Demosthenes  relies  on  pathos  rather  than  ethos.  So,  too, 
the  arguments  of  these  speeches,  thougli  excellent  in  themselves, 
have  not  the  directness  of  attack  which  goes  straight  to  the 
vuhierable  points  of  the  adversary's  case,  while  there  is  con- 
siderable scorn  and  trampling  on  the  opponent.  <vhich  is  not 
much  to  the  point. 

Finally,  in  this  period  we  see  the  seeds  of  much  that  was  to 
appear  in  its  complete  form  only  later.  Thus,  for  instance,  the 
rhythm  of  his  later  style  depends  largely  on  his  rule  of  not 
allowing  three  short  syllables  to  occur  together.  The  first  opera- 
tions of  his  rule  are  observable  in  the  speeches  against  Aphobus 
and  Onetor,  and  are  still  more  visible  in  the  speech  on  the  Naval 
Crown,  but  perfection  only  comes  later.  The  same  remark 
applies  to  other  qualities — his  grace  and  his  power,  which  are 
present,  if  not  perfect — and  we  may  say  of  Demosthenes,  iu 
this  period,  his  faults  were  merely  those  of  immaturity.  They 
left  him  as  he  grew. 


CHAPTER  V. 

DEMOSTHENES  :    SECOND    PERIOD. 

Between  the  first  period  of  Demosthenes'  literary  career,  ending 
B.C.  359,  and  the  second  period,  commencing  B.c.  355,  is  a  space 
of  four  years,  represented  by  no  speeches,  which  Demosthenes 
probably  spent  in  preparing  himself,  in  his  characteristically 
determined  and  assiduous  manner,  for  his  profession.  His 
object  in  life  was  political  oratory,  and  logography  was  for  him, 
beyond  a  means  of  living,  only  a  means  to  his  final  object. 
For  this  reason,  and  because  his  private  speeches  are  inferior  to 
his  political  orations,  it  is  advisable  to  consider  the  private 
speeches  first.  With  regard  to  these  speeches,  it  is  to  be  noticed 
that  not  only  do  they  cease  altogether  as  soon  as  Demosthenes 
becomes  for  the  first  time  a  politician  of  weight,  about  B.C.  345, 
but  for  some  time  before  that  they  begin  to  fall  off  in  merit. 
The  more  actively  he  came  to  participate  in  politics  the  less 


oratory:    DEMOSTHENES.  4I3 

time  and  work  he  could  bestow  upon  private  speeches  Another 
effect  of  the  same  cause  is  to  be  seen  in  the  tendency  of  these 
later  private  speeches  to  grow  more  and  more  rhetorical  in 
quality  and  less  and  less  forensic. 

Between  deliberative  and  forensic  oratory  the  difference  in 
subject  is  one  that  necessarily  finds  expression  in  a  difference  of 
style.  In  the  one  case  the  interests  of  an  individual,  in  the 
other  case  the  interests  of  a  nation,  are  at  stake,  and  to  the 
more  important  subject  a  more  exalted  style  and  loftier  fliglita 
of  language  are  adapted.  On  Demosthenes  this  difference  tells 
Vfiih  marked  effect.  His  earnestness  and  single-minded  pat- 
riotism find  their  proper  field  in  political  oratory,  and  give  it 
the  iiTesistible  force  which  is  his  greatest  characteristic.  But 
this  very  force  is  too  irresistible  and  too  excessive  a  strain  for 
forensic  oratory  to  bear.  Being  unable  to  find  an  outlet  in 
those  higher  regions  of  oratory  which  are  the  province  of  deli- 
berative rhetoric,  this  force  is  diverted  into  the  channel  of 
argument.  Demosthenes'  earnestness  does  not  allow  him  to  be 
easy  unless  he  is  arguing,  and  here  again  the  difference  between 
deliberative  and  forensic  oratory  contributed  to  exaggerate  this 
fault.  The  political  problems  with  which  an  Athenian  states- 
man had  to  deal  were  of  comparatively  simple  nature,  and 
neither  demanded  nor  admitted  of  complex  argument.  Athenian 
law,  however,  was  of  a  much  more  complicated  nature,  and 
gave  full  scope  to  Demosthenes'  tendency  to  argumentation. 
From  the  literary  point  of  view  this  tendency  is  a  mistake, 
because  the  perpetual  argument  is  too  great  a  strain  on  the 
reader's  power  of  attention  ;  and  from  a  practical  point  of  view 
it  is  also  a  fault,  because  it  inspires  the  distrust  which  excessive 
cleverness  arouses.  Demosthenes'  conclusions  may  be  right, 
but  if  he  had  been  employed  on  the  other  side  he  would  pro- 
bably have  proved  his  case  quite  as  conclusively. 

It  is  this  over-anxiety  to  prove  his  point  which  compels  us  to 
rank  Demosthenes  as  a  logographer  below  Lysias  or  Hyperides. 
It  is  not  that  Demosthenes  is  incapable  of  simple  and  easy  narra- 
tive. The  first  of  the  private  speeches  of  this  period,  that  against 
Conon,is  proof  to  the  contrary.  The  speech  in  its  simple  statement 
of  the  assault  and  battery  which  gave  rise  to  the  action  is  quite 
as  efiective  as  anything  in  Lysias,  wliile  the  language  is  not  only 
as  graceful  as  that  of  Lysias,  but  is  powerful  to  a  degree  attained 
only  by  Demosthenes.  Moreover,  the  ethos  is  good.  The  com- 
plainant, Ariston,  leaves  on  one  the  impression  of  being  a 
thoroughly  inoffensive  citizen,  so  inoffensive,  indeed,  and  so 
orthodoxly  respectable,  that  there  is  something  comic  in  the 


414  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

bare  supposition  that  lie  could  possibly  have  commenced  a  fight 
which  had  for  its  results  that  he  was  carried  home,  and  his 
"  mother  rushed  out  and  the  women  set  up  such  a  crying  and 
wailing  that  some  of  the  neighbours  sent  to  ask  what  was  the 
matter."  ^ 

All  this  is  more  than  worthy  of  Lysias.  But  it  is  isolated 
among  the  speeches  of  Demosthenes.  It  is  not,  indeed,  the 
only  instance  which  shows  that  Demosthenes'  touch  could  be 
light.  In  his  political  orations,  certainly,  his  irony  takes  its 
colour  from  the  dominant  tone  of  these  speeches,  and  becomes 
somewhat  grim  ;  but  in  the  private  speeches  it  sometimes 
beconv\s  bright  and  quite  delightful.  One  speech,  the  first 
against  Boeotus  (the  second  is  pseudo-Demosthenic),  is,  as  a 
whole,  cast  in  a  lighter  vein  than  is  usual  with  Demosthenes. 
This  speech  involves  a  point  of  Attic  law  which  has  only  lately 
been  properly  understood.^  It  seems  that  for  a  child  at  Athens 
to  be  legitimate,  and  to  exercise  the  rights  of  citizenship,  it  was 
only  necessary  that  the  parents,  both  being  Athenian  citizens, 
should  have  been  formally  affianced,  and  this  even  if  the  father 
was  already  fully  married.  In  the  present  case,  the  complainant, 
Mantitheus,  was  the  son  of  the  full  wife,  and  the  defendant, 
Boeotus,  the  son  of  the  half  wife.  The  latter,  however,  had 
assumed,  in  lieu  of  his  proper  name,  Boeotus,  the  name  Manti- 
theus, and  this  forms  the  subject  of  the  action.  A  real  griev- 
ance was  involved,  for  at  Athens  a  man's  full  legal  title  consisted 
of  his  own  name,  his  father's,  and  the  name  of  his  township.  As, 
then,  the  titles  of  the  real  and  the  false  Mantitheus  would  in  all 
legal  and  other  documents  be  precisely  the  same,  inextricable 
confusion  would  be  the  result.  "  Mantitheus,  son  of  Mantias  of 
Thoricus,"  is  condemned  to  a  fine,  and  each  legal  owner  of  the 
title  says  it  is  the  other  man  who  is  fined.  "  Mantitheus,  son 
of  Mantias  of  Thoricus,"  is  appointed  by  lot  to  office,  and  each 
man  says  it  is  he  Avho  is  appointed,  with  the  result,  as  the  com- 
plainant says,^  that  "  we  shall  abuse  each  other,  and  the  success- 
ful talker  will  get  the  office."  The  difficulties  of  this  kind 
which  might  ensue  are  developed  in  a  tone  of  subdued  humour 
by  Demosthenes,  and  with  a  fertility  of  imagination,  which  is 
really  due  to  his  legal  knowledge,  but  is  worthy  of  the  "Comedy 
of  Errors,"  and  the  concluding  appeal  to  "you  tiresome  Boeotus  " 
is  conceived  in  the  same  light  strain. 

But  if  these  two  speeches,  against  Conon  and  against  Boeotus, 
show  that  Demosthenes  was  capable  of  simple  narrative,  effectiva 

*  Kennedy's  Trans.,  v.  174.  ^  gee  Buer's  "  Drei  Studien." 

2  Kennedy,  258. 


oratory:    DEMOSTHENES.  415 

e»hos,  and  delightful  humour,  his  other  speeches  show  equally 
clearly  that  he  did  not  often  allow  himself  to  give  rein  to  this 
capacity.  The  latest  of  the  private  orations,  that  against  Eubu- 
lides,  has  not  received  the  orator's  finishing  touches,  and  the 
two  which  chronologically  immediately  precede  it,  those  against 
Pantaenetus  and  Nausimachus,  suffer  from  the  fact  that  the 
author's  heart  was  in  political  speaking  whilst  he  was  writing 
them. 

The  speech  for  Phormio,  which  is  considered  to  be  Demos 
thenes'  best  private  oration,  shows  how  completely  he  trusted 
to  argument  rather  than  to  any  other  means  of  producing  con- 
viction. Humour  there  is  none.  Narrative  has  no  independent 
footing,  but  is  chopped  into  bits  and  served  up  solely  for  the 
sake  of  the  argument,  and  the  argument  goes  on  with  a 
mechanical  precision  which  is  somewhat  deadening.  The 
seriousness  of  the  speech  darkens  into  scorn  at  times,  but  never 
brightens  into  light  or  gracefulness.  Finally,  this  argumenta- 
tion ruins  the  ethos  of  the  speech.  Phormio  is  made  out  to  be 
good  and  Apollodorus  bad ;  but  Demosthenes  is  not  content  to 
convey  these  impressions  in  the  most  effective  way — that  is,  in- 
directly :  his  technical  power,^  which  in  this  speech  is  developed 
to  the  utmost,  is  too  strong  to  permit  him  to  do  that.  He  has 
the  case  so  thoroughly  in  his  own  hands,  and  the  law  so  com- 
pletely at  his  finger-ends,  that  he  can  come  into  court  and 
simply  demonstrate  that  Conon  is  an  honourable  man  and 
Apollodorus  a  treacherous  and  insolent  villain.  Unfortunately, 
however,  mathematical  demonstrations  do  not  appeal  to  one's 
emotions,  and  so  the  ethos  of  this  speech  fails  of  its  object. 

It  is  possible  that  but  for  two  facts  the  unsatisfactory  nature 
of  the  ethos  of  this  speech  would  have  been  less  patent  to  us. 
First,  Demosthenes  in  a  later  speech  reverses  the  characters  of 
Phormio  and  Apollodorus  as  given  in  his  speech  for  Phormio  ; 
and,  secondly,  we  possess  the  speech.  The  speech  in  question 
is  the  first  against  Stephanus,  and  was  composed  by  Demos- 
thenes for  Apollodorus  to  be  used  in  prosecuting  Stephanus 
(one  of  Demosthenes'  witnesses  in  the  previous  trial)  for  per- 
jury. In  the  absence  of  a  full  knowledge  of  the  facts,  this 
sudden  change  of  front  on  the  part  of  Demosthenes  has  seemed 
so  strange  that  in  antiquity  it  gave  rise  very  naturally  to  various 
stories  not  to  the  credit  of  Demosthenes.  So  strongly  has  it 
been  felt  by  modern  students  of  Demosthenes  to  reflect  on  the 
honour  of  Demosthenes  that  the  speech  has  been  on  this  ground 
rejected  as  not  genuine.     But  the  speech  is  both  marked  by  the 


41 6  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

power  of  Demosthenes  and  responds  to  the  finer  test  of  the  lair 
of  rhythm,  so  that  it  must  he  accepted  as  genuine.  Kor,  if  we 
class  the  other  speeches  for  Apollodorus  amongst  the  pseudo- 
Demosthenic  group,  to  which  they  belong,  can  we  accept  the 
explanation  that  Demosthenes  formed  an  early  and  lasting  con 
nection  with  Apollodorus,  composed  many  speeches  for  him,  but 
quarrelled  with  him,  and  so  delivered  the  speech  for  Phormio 
against  him,  and  then  finally  became  reconciled  with  him,  and 
again  composed  a  speech,  the  present  one,  for  him. 

Demosthenes,  however,  was  always  anxious  to  divert  the 
theoric  fund  to  military  purposes,  and  it  happened  that  at  the  time 
when  he  composed  this  speech  for  Apollodorus,  Apollodorus 
succeeded  in  persuading  the  senate  that  the  assembly  should 
have  the  power  of  deciding  whether  the  surplus  revenues  of  the 
state  should  be  devoted  to  the  theoricon  or  to  the  war  depart- 
ment. From  this  coincidence  it  has  been  conjectured  that  the 
speech  for  Apollodorus  against  Stephanus  was  the  price  Demos- 
thenes paid  in  order  to  obtain  Apollodorus'  support  for  his 
political  scheme.  Whether  this  explanation  be  accepted  or 
not,  the  evidence  as  we  have  it  is  not  enough  to  warrant  us  in 
condemning  Demosthenes.  Further,  to  return  to  the  purely 
literary  aspect  of  the  question,  we  may  conclude  that  it  was 
because  neither  Phormio  nor  Apollodorus  deserved  the  strong 
characters  which  Demosthenes  gives  them  in  the  speech  for 
Phormio,  that  in  that  speech  he  found  it  advisable  to  trust 
entirely  to  the  technical  power  of  which  he  was  so  consummate 
a  master,  and  which  is  there  developed  to  the  detriment  of  the 
ethos. 

"We  now  come  to  the  political  orations  of  Demosthenes.  These 
fall  naturally  into  two  classes.  There  are  first  the  deliberative 
speeches  properly  so  called,  the  demegories,  which  comprise  both 
groups  of  the  Philippics,  and  by  which  Demosthenes  is  best 
known  :  next  the  speeches  composed  by  Demosthenes,  and  some- 
times delivered  by  him,  as  synegorus  for  other  people.  With 
the  latter  class,  consisting  of  the  speeches  against  Androtion, 
Leptines,  Timocrates,  and  Aristocrates,  we  will  begin. 

These  three  speeches,  together  with  that  against  the  law  of 
Leptines,  which  we  shall  consider  separately,  are  differentiated 
from  the  demegories  by  the  fact  that  they  are  not  purely  political, 
but  are  mainly  concerned  with  points  of  constitutional  law. 
They  thus  form  a  genus  of  speech  intermediate  in  nature  between 
the  purely  legal  character  of  the  private  orations  and  the  purely 
pclitical  character  of  the  demegories  ;  and  at  the  same  time  they 
make  the  stepping-stone  by  which  Demosthenes  passed  ^ 


OKATOKY  :    DEMOSTHENES.  4  I  7 

logography  to  politics.  Marking  as  they  do  a  period  when 
Demosthenes  had  as  yet  established  no  independent  footing  in 
politics,  they  naturally  cease  when  Demosthenes  becomes  estab- 
lished as  a  statesman  [i.e.  at  the  time  of  the  second  group  of 
Philippics). 

The  difference  between  these  speeches  and  the  demegories 
does  not  rest  merely  on  these  external  differences.  There  is 
also  a  difference  of  style  between  them  analogous  to  the  differsnce 
between  the  political  and  the  private  orations.  On  the  one 
hand,  they  do  not,  like  the  demegories,  treat  of  the  highest 
subjects  of  oratory.  On  the  other  hand,  the  orator  has  the 
power  to  appeal  to  patriotic  and  allied  sentiments,  which  to  the 
purely  forensic  orator  is  comparatively  denied.  This  difference 
of  subject  produces,  or  ought  to  produce,  a  corresponding  dif- 
ference in  style,  and  it  is  one  of  the  great  merits  of  Demosthenes 
as  an  artist  that  he  can  and  does  invest  each  kind  of  subject 
with  the  style  which  is  artistically  proper  to  it.  The  range  of 
power  which  enabled  Demosthenes  to  vary  his  style  so  com- 
pletely in  this  manner  is  in  itself  proof  that  he  possessed  many 
excellences.  Examination  will  show  that,  as  a  constitutional 
lawyer,  as  well  as  in  his  private  speeches,  he  attains  the  highest 
excellence. 

Typical  of  Demosthenes'  constitutional  speeches  at  their  best 
is  the  speech  against  the  law  of  Leptines.  Aphepsion  and 
Ctesippus  wishing  to  repeal  this  law,  employed  respectively 
Phormio  and  Demosthenes  to  speak  for  them.  Phormio  opened 
the  case,  and  Demosthenes,  who  thus  appeared  as  synegorus  in 
a  political  case  for  the  first  time  (b.c.  355),  followed  with  this 
speech,  which  is  accordingly  technically  called  a  deuterology.^ 
The  law  of  Leptines  abolished  once  and  for  ever  the  exemptions 
enjoyed  by  various  Athenians  from  the  expensive  and  burden- 
some duties  of  the  choregia  and  other  "liturgies."  A  subject  of 
this  kind  does  not  admit  of  the  impassioned  flights  of  eloquence 
which  the  approach  of  a  national  calamity  would  demand.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  does  permit  the  orator  to  appeal  to  the  honour, 
the  gratitude,  and  the  good  name  of  the  country,  and  to  call  for 
the  postponement  of  niggardly  parsimony  to  moral  obligations. 
To  this  level  of  honourable  patriotism  and  political  morality 
Demosthenes  keeps  the  speech  all  through ;  and  it  is  its  eleva- 
tion of  tone  and  sentiment  which  has  gained  for  this  speech 
much  of  its  high  reputation.     The  language  in  which  he  clothes 

^  The  writer  of  a  deuterology  was  not  expected  to  deal  systematically  with 
the  whole  of  the  opponent's  case,  but  exercised  his  own  discretion  in  the 
choice  of  points  to  dilate  upon. 

2  D 


4 1  8  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

these  sentiments,  is  like  them,  quiet  and  unexaggerated  through- 
out. When  the  moment  comes  for  praising  the  merits  of  those 
who  have  enjoyed  the  exemptions  in  question  in  the  past,  his 
style  appropriately  becomes  somewhat  epideictic  ;  but  elsewhere 
his  language  is  never  bolder  or  stronger  than  the  treatment  of 
the  subject  requires. 

Although,  however,  the  ethos  is  thus  successfully  developed, 
the  reasoning  is  by  no  means  neglected.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
close  and  effective,  but  it  is  not  thrust  unduly  forward.  The 
desire  to  prove  his  point  does  not  mislead  him  into  reducing 
everything  to  an  argument ;  and  the  same  absence  of  constraint 
is  visible  in  his  freedom  of  arrangement  and  his  looseness,  per- 
haps even  carelessness,  of  connection.  The  ease  and  grace  of 
the  speech  has  caused  it  to  be  compared  to  the  work  of  Lysias 
in  style.  But  although  the  similarity  is  undoubtedly  great, 
the  points  of  difl'erence  are  important.  The  art  of  Lysias  con- 
sists in  writing  in  a  simple  easy  style,  which  apparently  anybody, 
certainly  the  man  in  whose  mouth  the  speech  is  put,  might  use. 
In  the  speech  of  Demosthenes,  however,  there  is  no  pretence  of 
this  kind.  The  work  is  a  work  of  art,  and  is,  without  attempt 
at  disguise,  the  work  of  a  practised  and  skilful  orator. 

Moreover,  the  style  of  Lysias  is  always  graceful,  but  it  is 
always  slender.  The  oratory  of  Demosthenes  has  more  flesh  on 
his  bones ;  its  forms  are  fuller  and  rounder.  This  is  the  case 
even  with  the  speech  against  the  law  of  Leptines,  which  in 
this  respect  is  less  developed  than  the  remainder  of  the  set  of 
speeches  to  which  it  belongs.  Variety  of  expression,  wealth  of 
words,  and  the  use  of  metaphors  all  help  to  give  more  substance 
to  the  speeches  against  Timocrates  (b.c.  353)  and  Aristocrates 
(B.C.  352),  while  in  the  latter  the  professional  skill  of  Demos- 
thenes has  been  employed  in  further  smoothing  the  transitions 
from  one  part  of  the  speech  to  another. 

The  demegories  fall  into  two  groups — those  delivered  by  De- 
mosthenes before  B.C.  349,  while  he  was  yet  bidding  for  power, 
and  those  delivered  when  he  had  become  a  politician  of  some 
consequence  (i.e.  after  B.C.  346). 

The  speeches  on  the  Navy  Boards  (b.c.  354),  for  the  Mega- 
lopolitans  (b.c  353),  and  on  the  liberty  of  the  Rhodians  (b.c. 
350)  are  the  speeches  of  a  young  politician  trying  to  bring 
himself  into  notice.  The  speech  on  the  Navy  Boards,  delivered 
when  Demosthenes  was  thirty  years  of  age,  is  practical  and 
sensible.  The  other  two  speeches  display  considerable  courage 
in  advocating  unpopular  views.  In  style,  these  three  speeches 
are  very  similar,  though  the  last  is  perhaps  the  most  inferior 


ORATORY  :    DEMOSTHENES.  4  1 9 

Their  common  feature  is  their  Thncydidean  character.  They 
are  in  passages  artificial,  harsh,  difficult,  and  even  obscure.^ 
Doubtless  the  imitation  of  Thucydides  was  intentional  on  the 
part  of  Demosthenes,  who  wished  to  transfer  to  his  own  speeches 
the  brevity,  the  compression,  the  force,  and  the  sting  of  the 
historian,  but  had  not  yet  learnt  that  it  is  possible  to  be  im- 
pressive Avithout  being  obscure.  In  later  times  the  influence  of 
Isocrates  counteracted  that  of  Thucydides  on  Demosthenes,  and 
the  result  is  that,  while  these  speeches  are  more  forcible  than  the 
speech  against  the  law  of  Leptines,  they  are  more  clumsy  than 
the  later  deniegories.  In  one  respect,  however,  the  influence  of 
Thucydides,  which  here  is  so  plain,  persisted  throughout  the 
oratory  of  Demosthenes.  The  severe  style,  of  which  Thucy- 
dides and  Antiphon  are  representatives,  trusted  much  more  to 
the  efiect  of  single  words  than  of  the  sentence ;  and,  that  these 
cardinal  words  may  have  the  more  eff'ect,  they  are  thrown  into  un- 
usual and  emphatic  positions.  This  means  of  gaining  emphasis 
was  one  which  Demosthenes  would  never  forego  ;  and  herein  he 
differs  from  Lysias,  who  sacrifices  less  to  emphasis  ;  and  still  more 
from  Isocrates,  whose  dominant  motive  is  a  clearness  and  trans- 
parency of  sentence  against  which  abnormal  disposition  of  words 
would  militate. 

The  first  group  of  the  Philippics  further  includes  the  Fin-. 
Philippic  (B.C.  351)  and  the  Olynthiacs  ^  (b.c.  349).  These 
speeches  were  designed  to  waken  the  Athenians  to  the  danger 
which  Philip's  growing  power  threatened  them  with,  and  to 
arouse  them  to  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  active  measures  to 
meet  the  danger.^  Demosthenes,  however,  was  still  far  from 
rivalling  Eubulus,  who  then  directed  the  fortunes  of  Athens, 
and  these  orations  consequently,  like  the  earlier  demegories, 
shared  the  fate  of  the  speeches  of  an  unsupported  speaker. 

The  first  impression  left  by  these  speeches  on  the  reader  is 
their  intense  earnestness.  "Whether  Demosthenes  is  stating  a 
danger,  exposing  the  means  of  resistance,  rebuking  the  indo- 
lence of  his  countrymen,  or  encouraging  them  yet  to  resist,  this 
terrible  earnestness  is  always  present.  In  this  respect,  the 
speeches  are  doubtless  a  true  reflection  of  the  man's  character. 

^  E.g.  on  the  Naval  Board,  4,  5,  13,  26.  The  construction  of  the  neuter 
article  with  the  infinitive  or  with  the  genitive  is  Thucydidean. 

2  The  proper  order  of  the  Olynthiacs  is  a  question  belonging  rather  to  the 
literature  of  history  than  to  the  history  of  literature,  and  does  not  seem 
capable  of  any  very  satisfactory  settlement. 

^  The  subject-matter  of  these  speeches  belongs  to  Greek  history,  and  con- 
sequently the  reader  is  referred  for  their  contents  to  some  historian  ol 
Greece. 


420  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Munificent  towards  the  state,  generous  and  tender-hearted  aa 
he  was  to  his  poor  relations,  Demosthenes,  the  water-drinker 
and  hard  worker,  was  not  an  agreeable  acquaintance.  He  was 
too  much  concentrated  on  his  work  to  be  social,  and  we  should 
wrong  his  memory  to  imagine  him  as  ever  entertaining  or 
amusing. 

These  speeches  and  the  demegories  generally  have,  then,  a 
distinct  and  remarkable  ethos,  but  it  is  not  an  ethos  consciously, 
and  as  it  were  artificially,  imparted  to  them,  as  in  the  case  of 
Lysias'  speeches.  It  is  the  natural  and  necessary  feeling  in- 
spired in  the  reader  by  a  man  who  is  plainly  speaking  from  the 
very  bottom  of  his  heart,  who  mingles  with  his  work  no  thought 
for  himself,  no  wish  for  aught  but  for  the  welfare  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  and  the  honour  of  his  country. 

The  earnestness  which  inspires  this  confidence  in  the  sin- 
cerity, unselfishness  and  patriotism  of  Demosthenes  is  a  quality 
which,  easily  appreciated,  has  at  all  times  largely  contributed  to 
the  fame  which  he  justly  enjoys.  But,  at  the  same  time,  it  is 
this  very  quality  which  sets  to  his  power  limits  beyond  which 
he  cannot  go  either  in  range  or  in  height.  Demosthenes'  oratory 
is  of  the  kind  which  carries  you  with  it  or  crushes  you,  but  it  can 
hardly  be  said  to  soar.  Its  loftiest  height  is  rather  a  moral  than 
an  oratorical  one,  an  unshaken  confidence  in  the  eternal  laws  of 
right  and  wrong,  and  an  elevated  trust  (supported  by  argument) 
in  political  morality.  What  concentration  and  earnestness  can 
attain  to  is  attained,  but  above  this  plane  his  eloquence  scarcely 
rises. 

Demosthenes'  is  not  the  power  to  excite  to  tears  or  move  to 
laughter,  still  less  to  mingle  tears  and  laughter.  His  earnestness 
neither  needed  the  one  nor  allowed  of  the  other.  Laughter 
may  be  a  legitimate  relief  in  modern  oratory,  as  in  modern 
tragedy,  but  it  is  no  more  to  be  looked  for  in  Demosthenes  than 
in  iEschylus.  In  this  respect  the  great  Athenian  orator  and 
the  great  Athenian  dramatist  may  well  be  compared.  The 
work  of  each  is  of  simple  structure  as  compared  with  the  com- 
plexity of  corresponding  modern  work,  and  is  suffused,  or  rather 
overshadowed,  by  the  gloom  of  impending  calamity.  In  both 
cases  the  only  relief  to  this  oppressive  apprehension  is  an  occa- 
sional gleam  of  humour  (e.^.  the  Nurse  in  iEschylus),  which,  how- 
ever, itself  is  apt  to  become  somewhat  grim  ;  as,  for  instance, 
when  Demosthenes  assures  the  Philippising  orators  that  they 
are  really  much  indebted  to  him  :  if  there  were  no  opposition  to 
Philip,  they  would  have  nobody  to  protect  them  from  Philip. 


ORATORY:    DEMOSTHENES.  421 

Irony,^  sarcasm,  satire,  and  parody  are  the  forms  in  which  his 
surcharged  feelings  find  relief.  Even  tlius  he  often  relapses  into 
a  bitterness  which  harmonises,  indeed,  with  the  tone  of  the 
speech,  but  evidently  troubles  instead  of  relieving  the  orator 
himself,  and  only  intensifies  instead  of  lightening  the  prevailing 
gloom.  Thup  lie  lashes  the  Athenian  craving  for  news.  "News! 
Why,  could  there  be  greater  news  than  a  man  of  Macedonia 
subduing  Athenians  and  directing  the  affairs  of  Greece  ? "  ^ 
Of  their  carpet-knights,  who  were  fonder  of  conducting  pro- 
cessions in  the  market-place  at  home  than  war  abroad,  he  says 
■with  scorn,  "  Like  puppet-makers,  you  elect  your  infantry  and 
cavalry  officers  for  the  market-place,  not  for  war."  ^  So,  too, 
where  he  cuttingly  remarks  that  their  generals'  courage  was 
shown  in  rather  facing  the  extreme  penalty  of  the  law  than 
die  in  battle.^  Scorn,  indignation,  anger,  and  disdain  are  the 
feelings  which  he  evokes  to  diversify  and  to  give  point  to  his 
forebodings. 

Equally  consonant  is  it  with  his  earnestness  that  petty  graces 
or  ambitious  ornament  he  alike  despises.  His  oratory  is  clothed 
in  its  strength  alone.  As  Fen^lon  says,  "  C'est  le  bon  sens  qui 
parle,  sans  autre  ornement  que  sa  force."  Without  grace  his 
oratory  distinctly  is  not ;  but  it  is  not  the  grace  of  Lysias'  slim 
and  slender  beauty ;  it  is  the  grace  which  accompanies  the  exer- 
cise of  perfect  strength.  Demosthenes  has  grace,  though  scarcely 
graces.  His  forms,  though  rounder  and  fuller,  as  we  have  said, 
than  those  of  Lysias,  are  made  so  by  the  addition  of  muscle,  not 
of  useless  flesh.  That  is  to  say,  his  style  includes  every  "figure" 
known  to  oratory,  and  these  figures  are  used  never  idly  or  for 
show,  but  always  to  contribute  to  the  force  of  the  speech. 

Thus  he  is  very  fond  of  antitheses  ;  not  in  the  sense  that  he 
is  perpetually  using  them,  but  that  he  uses  them  as  though  he 
loved  them,  making  them  very  sharp,  and  bringing  them  down 
with  tremendous  efi'ect ;  as  when  he  summarises  the  situation  in 
B.C.  351,  "The  beginning  of  this  war  was  to  chastise  Philip, 
the  end  is  to  protect  ourselves  against  his  attacks."  ^  For  the 
expression  of  the  stronger  emotions  alliteration  is  adapted.  It 
arrests  and  directs  the  attention  to  the  words  which  convey  the 
anger,  irony,  or  emotion,  and  thereby  increases  the  effect.    Poly- 

^  E.<t.  Phil.  iii.  66 :  Ka\-f)v  y  ol  iroWol  vvv  6.irei\-q<j>a(nv  'QpeiTuv  x*/'"''^ 
gaX'^v  y  6  dij/xos  6  'Eperpieaiv — KaXQs  'OXvvdiui'  ftpeiaaro. 

2  Fhil.  ii.  10  (^Kennedy's  trans.) 

»  lb.,  26.  ■•  lb.,  47. 

•  lb.,  43.  Demosthenes'  affection  for  antithesis  gives  the  point  to  Timoclei 
Irony  when  he  describes  him  as  ovSiirdiiroTe  'Avriderov  tliriiiv  oiSif  (th« 
Heroes,  Meineke,  Frag.  Com.  Med.,  p.  598). 


422  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Byndeton,  drawing  out  and  prolonging  the  effect  of  an  enumera 
tion,  renders  it  all  the  more  impressive  ;  while  paralipsis,  i.e. 
the  omission  of  what  might  be  taken  into  account,  gives  the 
impression  of  fairness  and  reserved  power. ^  Characteristic  of 
Demosthenes,  as  compared  with  earlier  orators,  is  his  use  of 
anadiplosis,  i.e.  the  repetition  of  a  word  for  emphasis,  as,  e.g. 
in  Shakespeare,  "  Oh,  horrible  !  oh,  horrible  !  most  horrible  !  "  ^ 
Anaphora  ^  and  antistrophe  * — the  repetition  of  a  word  at  the 
beginning  or  at  the  end  of  successive  clauses — asyndeton,* 
apostrophe,  feigned  objections,  questions,  exclamations,  and 
aposiopesis  are  all  brought  into  play  by  Demosthenes  when 
anything  is  to  be  gained  by  using  them. 

Before  proceeding  to  consider  the  second  group  of  Philippics, 
•we  must  deal  with  the  speech  against  Midias  (written  B.C.  349). 
Demosthenes  while  discharging  his  duties  as  choregus  was  in- 
sulted and  assaulted  in  the  theatre  by  Midias,  an  ancient  enemy. 
The  assembly,  which  was  held  in  the  theatre  immediately  after 
the  plays  to  give  a  preliminary  decision  on  such  disputes  as 
might  arise  out  of  the  plays,  decided  in  Demosthenes'  favour, 
and  it  was  now  for  Demosthenes  to  take  further  legal  proceed- 
ings. As  Demosthenes  was  at  this  time  just  succeeding  in  his 
long  endeavour  to  rise  into  notice  as  a  statesman,  it  was  natural 
that  he  should  feel  it  impossible  to  quietly  submit  to  the  affront 
so  publicly  and  outrageously  put  upon  him.  But  Midias  was  a 
man  of  wealth,  and  therefore  of  power.  It  was  consequently 
no  easy  matter,  as  Demosthenes  found,  to  bring  him  to  justice. 
Midias  managed  to  delay  tlie  trial  by  instigating  various  vexa- 
tious suits  against  Demosthenes,  and  succeeded  so  far  that  he 
gained  a  delay,  which  was  long  enough  to  make  it  exceedingly 
probable  that  the  popular  indignation  against  him  had  subsided 
into  indifference.  The  result  was  that  Demosthenes,  who  for 
long  strenuously  refused  to  accept  any  mediation,  at  length  saw 
that,  as  far  as  rehabilitating  his  dignity  was  concerned,  to  push 
the  matter  to  a  trial  would  be  quite  ineffectual.     At  the  same 

*  In  Phil.  iii.  26,  alliteration  (of  ff,  conveying  anger),  polysyndeton  (repeti- 
tion of  the  Kai),  and  paralipsis  all  occur  : — '0\w6ov  fiiv  Sr]  /cat  MediovTiv  Kal 

ATToXXwi'iac  Kal  dOo  Kai  rpiaKovTa  TrdXeis  iirl  QpaKi]S  iQ,  &,s  djrdcras  oOtus 
ti/Ltiij  dvriprjKev. 

^  E.g.  Oliin.  ii.  10  :  ov  yap  lariv,  ovk  &a-Tiv  w  &v8p€i  ' Adr]va?oi.. 

2  E.g.  01.  ii.  31 :  \^yu  Stj  Ks^dXaiov,  Travras  tlcT(f>ipeiv  d<p'  &awv  ^Karros  ixa 
rb  Icov'  wavras  i^i^vai  Kara  fxipos  k.t.X. 

*  E.g.  Phil.  i.  27  :  ra^idpxovi  Trap'  vp-Qiv.  'nnrdpxovs  Trap  ifiQiv. 

*  The  breathless  asyndeton,  which  hns  no  time  for  conjunctions,  is  best 
known  by  Csesar's  "  Veni,  vidi,  vici."  It  may  also  be  used,  as  by  Julian,  t« 
point  a  piece  of  wit :  iyvuv,  aviyvuv,  Kariyvuv. 


oratory:    DEMOSTHENES.  423 

tiiiK;  tlic  fall  of  Olynthus  necosaitated  peace,  and  Dcniosthenos 
could  not  refuse  to  co-operate  for  this  ohject  with  I'^ubulus,  who, 
moreover,  was  active  in  mediating  between  Demosthenes  anc 
Midias.  Doubtless,  also,  the  prospect  of  public  employment  in 
negotiating  the  peace,  as  well  as  his  patriotism,  had  some  effect 
in  inducing  Demosthenes  to  accept  the  compromise. 

Thus  tlie  speech  against  Midias,  though  written,  was  never 
delivered,  and  there  seem  to  be  no  grounds,  from  the  facts  of 
the  case,  for  the  more  or  less  absurd  imputations  which  have 
been  cast  upon  Demosthenes  in  connection  with  it.  The  speech, 
as  we  have  it,  is  unfinished  in  many  places,  but  its  power  is 
nevertheless  undeniable.  Written  by  Demosthenes  while  he 
was  yet  smarting  throughout  his  sensitive  nature  under  the 
insult  put  upon  him,  this  speech  is  the  blow  which  he  returns 
to  his  assailant.  Every  means  which  his  eloquence  suggests, 
which  his  skill  affords  him,  which  his  experience  had  accumu- 
lated, is  brought  into  play  to  give  force  and  weight  to  his 
strokes.  Although  the  matter  was  essentially  a  personal  one, 
the  assault  was  also  an  outrage  ujion  the  people  whose  repre- 
sentative Demosthenes  was  as  choregus.  This  aspect  of  the 
case  was  naturally  the  ona  which  Demosthenes  chose  to  put 
upon  it,  and  in  his  endeavour  to  do  so  he  assumes  the  style 
which  in  its  weight  and  dignity  is  characteristic  of  the  deme- 
gories.  It  was  not  in  the  eyes  of  Athenians,  and  according  to 
the  usage  of  the  law-courts  of  Athens,  inconsistent  with  this 
object  or  with  this  style  that  Demosthenes  should  launch  forth 
into  a  long  invective  against  the  life  and  manners  of  Midias. 
But  to  no  orator,  however  great,  is  it  given  to  descend  to  per- 
sonalities without  paying  the  penalty  thereof  by  degradation 
to  the  level  of  his  subject.  Therefore,  to  all  times,  as  to  us,  the 
speech  against  Midias  must  seem,  great  as  it  technically  is, 
below  the  reputation  of  Demosthenes 

At  the  age  of  forty,  Demosthenes,  supported  by  the  war  panty, 
and  co-operating  with  Hyperides,  Hegesippus,  and  others,  was 
now  (b.c.  344)  for  the  first  time  in  a  position  of  power,  and  for 
the  first  time  a  statesman  of  acknowledged  rank.  To  this  period 
belongs  the  second  group  of  Philippics,  consisting  of  the  speech 
on  the  Peace  (b.c.  346) ;  the  Second  Philippic  (b.c.  344) ;  the 
speech  on  the  Chersonese  (b.c.  341);  and  the  Third  Philippic 
(B.C.  341).  Of  the  speech  on  the  Peace  and  the  Second  Phi- 
lippic little  need  be  said  but  that  in  point  of  style  they  belong 
to  this  period.  The  speech  on  the  Chersonese  is  interesting  as 
being  the  demegory  which  is  least  open  to  the  charge  of  a  want 
of  conclusiveness  in  its  reasoning.     Demosthenes'  inferiority 


424  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

elsewli(}re  in  this  respect  is  in  part  doubtless  due  to  his  defi« 
ciency  in  method.  The  earher  orators  secured  a  certain  amount 
of  clearness  and  organisation  by  means  of  a  formal  and  artificial 
division  of  a  speech  into  such  parts  as  introduction,  narrative, 
argument,  and  conclusion.  These  divisions  Isseus  broke  up, 
or,  more  strictly  speaking,  he  broke  down  the  division  between 
narrative  and  argument.  Demosthenes  followed  the  example  of 
his  master,  and  left  only  the  introduction  and  the  conclusion 
untouched.  But  although  he  deserted  the  old  arrangement,  he 
introduced  nothing  to  take  its  place.  If  he  announces  a  plan 
at  the  beginning  of  a  speech,  he  does  not  adhere  to  it ;  and  more 
often  he  announces  no  plan  at  all.  He  thus  is  at  liberty  to 
interrupt  hi?  argument  and  then  resume  it,  repeat  himself,  01 
fail  to  resume  the  argument  thus  interrupted.  That  is  to  say, 
he  has  abandoned  the  artificial  method  without  attaining  to  & 
logical  arrangement. 

Partly  also  in  his  want  of  conclusiveness  we  see  the  limits 
on  the  intellectual  side  which  Avere  imposed  on  him  by  his  ear- 
nestness. On  the  emotional  side  we  have  seen  that  his  earnest- 
ness confines  him  to  scorn,  indignation,  and  other  stormy  displays 
appropriate  to  the  presage  of  calamity.  On  the  intellectual  side 
the  concentration  which  his  earnestness  leads  to  gives  him  a 
much  clearer  apprehension  of  what  he  wants  than  of  the  objec- 
tions which  might  be  conceivably  brought  forward  against  it. 
He  sees  things  from  his  own  side  with  perfect  distinctness,  but 
he  makes  little  attempt  to  place  himself  at  the  opposite  point  of 
view  and  work  from  that.  On  the  other  hand,  concentration 
gives  force.  He  does  not  weaken  his  attack  by  dividing  it,  but 
throws  his  whole  force  into  pressing  his  one  point.  If  he  sees 
only  his  own  side  of  the  matter,  he  sees  that  all  the  more  clearly  ; 
and  if  he  does  not  render  his  own  position  absolutely  impreg- 
nable, he  at  least  succeeds  in  making  his  ideas  and  his  feelings 
clear  to  his  hearers  beyond  the  possibility  of  misconception. 
Finally,  from  the  artistic  standpoint,  his  earnestness  and  con- 
centration give  to  his  speeches  the  unity  they  possess,  while  his 
freedom  from  the  restraints  of  either  a  logical  or  an  artificial 
arrangement  leaves  him  at  liberty  to  arrange  his  matter  in  accord- 
ance with  the  dictates  of  his  instinct  as  an  artist. 

In  connection  with  the  subject  of  arrangement,  it  may  be 
observed  that  an  oration,  like  a  tragedy,  at  Athens  usually  ter- 
minated in  the  simplest  and  quietest  of  strains.  This  practice, 
which  is  observed  by  Demosthenes,  is  noted  as  unpractical  by 
Lord  Brougham  ;  ^  and  undoubtedly,  for  the  purposes  of  raising 
^  Works,  vii.  25,  184. 


oratory:    DEMOSTHENES.  42$ 

enthusiastic  cheering,  something  more  in  the  nature  of  a  bravura 
note  is  required.  But  to  see  clearly  how  utterly  impossible  any 
euch  ending  is  for  Demosthenes,  we  have  only  to  look  at  the 
Third  Philippic.  This  is  the  greatest  and  the  noblest  of  all 
Demosthenes'  demegories.  It  contains  passages  of  the  very 
grandest  oratorical  power. ^  It  is  throughout  sad  and  solemn, 
with  the  majesty  and  grandeur  of  a  funeral  march.  It  is  the 
music  with  which  Greek  freedom  went  down  into  the  grave. 
Could  such  a  speech  conclude  amid  cheers'?  Nothing  more 
self-conscious  and  unlike  Demosthenes,  nothing  in  worse  taste 
or  more  vulgar  could  be  suggested.  There  was  only  one  way  to 
worthily  end  such  a  speech,  and  that  is  the  simple  way  in 
which  Demosthenes  ended  it.^ 

The  speech  on  the  Embassy  (b.c.  344)  largely  resembles  the 
speech  against  Midias.  As  a  display  of  technical  power,  and  as 
a  move  in  the  game  of  politics,  it  possesses  all  the  merit  which 
Demosthenes,  when  personally  touched,  might  be  expected 
to  show;  but  otherwise  it  does  not  increase  our  respect  for 
him.* 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DEMOSTHENES  :   THIRD   PERIOD — SPEECH   ON   THB   CROWN. 

The  interval  (b.c.  341-330)  between  the  second  and  third 
periods  of  Demosthenes'  literary  career  is  not  represented  by 
any  of  the  orations  that  have  come  down  to  us.  This  is  not,  of 
course,  because  Demosthenes  delivered  no  speeches  at  that  time. 
On  the  contrary,  he  was  probably  more  active  as  a  statesman 
and  an  orator  at  this  than  at  any  other  time  of  his  life.  It  was 
the  time  of  the  final  struggle  which  ended  on  the  fatal  field  of 
Chseronea  (b.c.  338),  the  death  of  Philip  (b.c.  336),  and  the 
unsuccessful  attempt  of  the  Spartan  Agis  to  throw  off  the 
Macedonian  yoke.  The  reason  we  have  none  of  the  many 
speeches  which  Demosthenes  made  at  such  a  time  of  activity 

^  E.g.  the  comparison  of  Philip  to  a  disease,  and  the  wonderful  irony  of 
66  (quoted  in  extenso  in  a  previous  note). 

2  The  whole  of  the  epilogue  consists  of  these  few  words,  74  :  iyw  fih 
br]  ravra  Xiyu,  ravra  ypdtpw  Kal  oiofiai  /cat  vvv  in  i-Kavop$oidT)vai  cLi>  to, 
TpyiyfMara  tovtoiv  yuyvoixivwv.  el  5^  rts  ^x^'  toutwv  ^eXriov,  Xeyiru  Kal 
ffVf,^^ov\€viTU.  8  Ti  S'  vfuv  dd^ei,  tovt',  w  iravTe^  deoi,  aiiveviyKOi.  Tlie  doubt 
and  almost  despair  of  Demosthenes  breaks  out  in  the  S}  iravres  deal. 

2  Some  notice  of  the  subject-matter  will  be  foimd  in  the  chapter  on 
.Machines. 


426  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

h  tliat  his  very  activity  left  him  no  time  to  publish  tlic  speechea 
which  he  delivered.  Further,  as  a  statesman  of  established 
position,  he  was  no  longer  under  the  necessity  of  publishing  for 
the  sake  of  gaining  a  political  footing. 

The  third  period  of  Demosthenes'  style  (b.c.  330-333), 
although  the  second  and  third  letters,  if  genuine,  belong  to 
tliis  period,  is  practicall)'^  represented  by  the  speech  on  the 
Crown.  In  B.C.  336  Ctesiphon  proposed  in  the  Boule  that  a 
golden  crown  should  be  publiclv  presented  to  Demosthenes  in 
tlie  theatre  at  the  great  Dionysia,  in  recognition  of  his  services 
to  the  state.  This  would  have  been  in  effect  a  condemnation  of 
the  Macedonian  party  at  Athens.  If  Demosthenes'  policy  was 
deserving  of  the  public  approval,  that  of  the  Macedonian  party 
was  thereby  publicly  condemned.  Opposition  to  the  proposal 
of  Ctesiphon  was  therefore  forthcoming  from  this  quarter,  and 
at  the  head  of  it  was  ^schines — the  second  orator  of  Athens — 
who  had  already  come  into  frequent  and  violent  collision  with 
Demosthenes. 

For  reasons  which  are  unknown  to  us,  the  matter  did  net  come 
to  a  trial  until  B.C.  330,  when  ^Eschines  indicted  Ctesiphon  for 
illegality  on  three  grounds — that  to  confer  a  reward  on  a  man 
whose  accounts  as  a  public  officer  had  not  been  audited  was 
illegal ;  that  to  proclaim  the  reward  in  the  theatre  at  the 
Dionysia  was  illegal ;  and  that  it  was  illegal  to  make  false 
statements  in  public  documents.  As  to  these  three  points,  the 
iirst  was  undouljtedly  perfectly  good  in  law.  At  the  time  of 
the  proposal  Demosthenes  was  a  treasurer  of  the  Theoricon  and 
a  conservator  of  the  walls,  and  had  not  rendered  account  of  his 
office.  The  second  point  was  probably  not  good  in  law.  But 
the  most  important  was  the  third  point.  It  raised  the  whole 
question  whether  the  policy  of  Demosthenes  in  encouraging 
Athens  to  stand  forth  as  the  champion  of  Greece  against  Mace- 
donia was  a  right  and  good  policy  or  not.  The  strength  of 
.^schines  lay  in  the  first  point  of  his  indictment,  and  in  the 
purely  legal  aspect  of  the  case  ;  and  it  is  in  this  part  of  his 
speech  against  Ctesiphon  that  his  argument  shows  to  most 
advantage.  In  reply  Ctesiplion  said  probably  very  little,  but 
gave  way  to  Demosthenes,  who  followed  with  the  (so-called) 
speech  on  the  Crown. 

Whether  we  have  the  speech  as  Demosthenes  delivered  it,  ia 
a  question  harder  to  answer  with  regard  to  the  speech  on  the 
Crown  than  with  regard  to  any  other  of  Demosthenes'  speeches. 
His  deliberative  speeches  he  wrote  out  before  delivering  them— 
his  aversion  to  improvisation  is  known — and  if  he  chose  t« 


oratory:    DEMOSTHENES.  427 

circulate,  or  merely  indeed  to  retain  without  destroying  his  copy, 
we  can  understand  its  coming  down  to  us.  His  forensic  speeches 
are  all  speeches  for  the  prosecution,  and  consequently  could  be 
composed  before  going  into  court.  There  is,  accordingly,  no 
difficulty  in  understanding  how  it  is  that  in  the  case  of  these 
speeches  also  we  have  the  words  as  Demosthenes  uttered  them 
— allowing,  that  is,  for  his  subsequent  erasures,  additions,  and 
corrections.  But  the  case  of  the  speech  on  the  Crown  is  dif- 
ferent. It  could  not  have  been  taken  into  court  ready  written 
out,  for  it  is  a  reply,  and  a  pretty  close  reply,  to  the  speech  of 
iEschines,  which  Demosthenes  would  not  hear  until  he  got  into 
court.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  at  least  some  of  the  speech  was 
not  written  out  beforehand.     The  question  arises,  how  much? 

In  the  first  place,  all  the  documents,  of  whatever  kind,  quoted, 
and  they  are  in  this  case  pretty  numerous,  had  to  be  produced 
at  the  preliminary  investigation  (anacrisis).  This  shows  that 
the  main  lines  of  the  speech  had  been  resolved  on  by  Demos- 
thenes before  the  actual  trial,  otherwise  he  would  not  have 
known  what  documents  to  put  in  at  the  anacrisis.  In  the  next 
place,  the  very  beginning  of  the  speech  shows  that  it  was  already 
planned,  and  that  Demosthenes  adhered  to  the  plan.  iEschines 
had  in  his  speech  ^  demanded  that  Demosthenes  should  follow 
the  order  in  which  he  had  treated  the  various  topics  of  the  trial. 
Demosthenes  having  arranged  his  speech  beforehand,  naturally 
says  2  to  the  court,  "  You  must  allow  the  parties  to  adopt  such 
order  and  course  of  defence  as  they  severally  choose  and  prefer." 
Again,  a  little  farther  on  in  the  speech  there  occurs  a  passage 
which  at  first  sight  looks  as  though  the  speech  were  going  to  be 
largely  extempore,  but  which  really  is  merely  a  rhetorical  device 
for  concealing  the  fact  that  the  speech  was  previously  prepared. 
Demosthenes  says,  3  "  I  shall  take  the  charges  in  the  same 
order  as  my  adversary,  and  discuss  them  all  one  by  one  without 
a  single  intentional  omission."  But  as  a  matter  of  fact,  iEschines 
had  no  choice  as  to  the  order  of  the  charges,  and  the  order  was 
known  to  Demosthenes  before  the  trial  began  quite  as  well  as  to 
his  opponent.  Equally  rhetorical  is  the  device  of  pretending  ^ 
that  he  enters  on  a  justification  of  his  state  policy  solely  because 
.^schines  first  introduced  the  subject.  This  was  the  very  matter 
which  was  at  trial,  and  which  the  crowds  of  visitors  from  all 
parts  of  Greece  had  come  to  hear.  For  six  years  the  trial  had 
hung  fire,  and  Demosthenes  had  had  the  whole  of  that  time  to 
think  out  his  defence.     In  fact,  Demosthenes  must — as  indeed 

^  In  Ctes.  203.  2  £)g  (7(,j._  2  (Kennedy). 

»  lb.  69  *  lb.  10. 


428  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

his  speech  shoAVs — have  known  the  weak  points  of  his  own  case 
as  well  as  ^schines  did,  and  must  have  known  very  fairly  where 
to  expect  each  blow.  Indeed,  he  anticipated  one  blow  which 
^schines  did  not  deliver.  He  made  sure  that,  amongst  other 
terms  of  abuse,  ^schines  would  bring  up  his  nickname,  Battalus, 
and  accordingly  prepared  an  effective  reply.  But  Ji^schines 
never  alluded  to  the  nickname  ;  and  accordingly  Demosthenes' 
words  now  run — not  "  I,  whom  you  call  Battalus,"  but — "  I, 
whom  you  would  call  Battalus."  ^ 

On  the  Avhole,  then,  it  seems  that  the  differences  between  the 
speech  as  Demosthenes  took  it  prepared  into  court,  and  as  he 
delivered  it  after  hearing  and  in  reply  to  iEschines'  speech, 
were  probably  not  very  considerable,  and  that  there  is  no  diffi- 
culty in  understanding  how  it  is  that  we  have  the  speech  as 
delivered  by  Demosthenes.  Undoubtedly  both  he  and  .^schines 
went  home  and  made  such  additions  to  or  corrections  in  their 
arguments  as  their  mutual  criticism  seemed  to  them  to  necessi- 
tate, .^^^schines  certainly  introduced  several  such  alterations. ^ 
One  of  these  passages  is  extremely  instructive,  .^schines  says  ^ 
that  he  hears  Demosthenes  is  going  to  compare  him,  in  an 
uncomplimentary  sense,  to  the  Sirens,  and  retorts  on  Demos- 
thenes with  a  tu  quoque.  This  of  course  means  that  Demosthenes 
did  in  his  speech  on  the  Crown  compare  vEschines  to  the  Sirens, 
and  that  .^schines  when  the  trial  was  over  inserted  this  retort. 
But  in  our  copy  of  the  speech  on  the  Crown  no  such  comparison 
is  to  be  found.  Evidently,  therefore,  Demosthenes,  in  making 
the  final  copy  of  his  speech  for  circulation,  omitted  this  passage  ; 
but  of  this  omission  .^schines,  who  was  replying  to  the  speech 
as  spoken  in  court,  was  unaware.  If  ^schines  had  been  answer- 
ing the  circulated  copy  of  the  Z)e  Corona,  there  would  have  been 
no  need  for  him  to  reply  to  a  passage  which  did  not  occur  in  it. 
From  this  it  would  seem,  then,  that  the  other  passages  of  yEschinas 
which  imply  acquaintance  with  Demosthenes'  speech  are  good 
evidence  that  the  sections  of  Demosthenes  against  which  they 
are  directed  were  really  delivered  in  court. 

It  has  been  said  *  that  the  sources  of  Demosthenes'  power 
as  an  orator  are  three  :  his  lofty  morality,  his  intellectual  supe- 
riority, and  the  magical  power  of  his  language.  We  will  begin, 
therefore,  our  criticism  of  the  speech  on  Aie  Crown  with  an 
examination  of  the  language.  The  variety  of  efiects  which  De- 
mosthenes is  capable  of  producing  is  due,  in  the  first  place,  to 
his  extensive  command  of  language.     In  this  respect,  even  in 

^  Schsefer,  Demosthenes,  B.  80, 

*  £.!/.  in  Ctes.  228.  '  lb,  229. 

*  Westermann,  Geschichte  der  Beredsamkeit,  i.  109. 


oratory:    DEMOSTHENES,  429 

his  other  speeches,  the  range  of  Demosthenes  is  much  wider 
than  that  of  any  previous  orator ;  and  in  this,  his  greatest  speech, 
he  shows  a  fertility  and  copiousness  which  even  he  had  never 
before  displayed.  Antiphon,  writing  in  the  severe  style,  was 
limited  in  his  choice  of  words  and  expressions  by  the  limited 
object  which  he  had  in  view,  namely,  to  produce  an  effect  of 
magnificence  and  grandeur.  Lysias,  writing  in  the  plain  style, 
was  equally  limited  in  his  resources,  although  his  theory  of  the 
art — that  it  should  confine  itself  to  such  modes  of  expression  as 
were  within  the  reach  of  the  ordinary  man — directed  his  labours 
to  a  totally  different  part  of  the  field  to  that  which  Antiphon 
had  been  labouring.  Isocrates,  again,  who  was  no  practical  orator, 
indulged  in  an  academic  fastidiousness  of  diction  which  limited 
his  vocabulary  in  a  distinctly  artificial  manner. 

Demosthenes,  however,  fills  all  these  fields.  He  not  only 
avails  himself  freely  of  the  magnificence  of  Antiphon,  the  sim- 
plicity of  Lysias,  or  the  precision  of  Isocrates,  as  occasion 
requires  ;  but  he  has  no  hesitation  in  borrowing  the  "  by  Zeus  !"i 
of  ordinary,  not  to  say  vulgar  life.  Nor  has  he  any  prudery  to 
prevent  him  calling  a  plain  thing  by  its  plain  name.  His  in- 
nate sense  of  power  enabled  him  to  deal  freely  with  what  others 
touched  timidly.  The  level  of  culture  at  which  a  stock  of 
proverbs  constitutes  a  man's  education  is  that  of  Sancho  Panza  ; 
and  consequently,  proverbs,  however  apt,  are  frequently  avoided 
by  writers  as  wanting  in  dignity.  But  Demosthenes,  if  he  wants 
a  proverb,  uses  it.^  So,  too,  if  comedy  can  be  laid  under  con- 
tribution to  yield  a  means  of  ridicule,  Demosthenes  goes  un- 
hesitatingly to  comedy.  3     If  the  language  as  it  is  does  not  afford 

^  Demosthenes  uses  not  only  vt]  rhv  Aid,  but  the  form  vij  Aid,  which  exces- 
sive usage  had  worn  it  down  to.  An  equally  lively  and  vulgar  expression  is 
S)  rav.  This  expression  was  originally  respectable  {cf.  &  kra,  Alcseus  in 
Athen.  481A).  Sophocles  puts  it  into  a  messenger's  mouth,  0.  T.  1145.  An 
interesting  indication  that  Demosthenes  did  not  confine  himself  with  abso- 
lute strictness  to  "pure"  Attic  is  to  be  found  in  his  use  of  the  preposi- 
tion aiiv.  In  Xenophon,  who  has  no  claims  to  "purity,"  avv  is  used  more 
frequently  than  fxird  (the  proportion  is  (tvv  used  556  times,  iieTO,  275  times). 
In  Homer  aiiv  is  used  freely.  In  Herodotus  fierd  begins  to  seriously  rival 
cit  (ffdv  72,  iJLiTd  65).  In  Attic  Greek  the  "law  of  parcimony,"  which,  as 
Mr.  Ruth«rford  in  his  "  New  Phrynichus  "  has  shown,  would  not  tolerate  if 
it  could  not  differentiate  synonyms,  practically  killed  ajuv.  In  Plato  we 
have  aiv^7,  fierd  586  ;  in  Demosthenes  ffOv  12  (15),  /xerd  346;  in  Lysias 
aijv  2,  /jLerd  102  ;  and  in  Isocrates,  Lycurgus,  and  Hyperides  crm  does  not 
occur,  fxerd  is  in  undisturbed  possession  of  the  field.  Why  fierd  killed  crvp 
we  do  not  know.     See  T.  Mommson,  Progr.  Frankfurt,  1847. 

2  De  Cor.  24,  72,  263.  In  the  demegories,  however,  he  never  does  mora 
than  allude  to  proverbs. 

'  lb.  242,  261 ;  the  diminutives  are  from  comedy. 


430  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

anything  strong  enough  to  express  his  feelings  of  contempt,  ha 
coins  a  word  which  shall  be  strong  enough.^  In  the  other  direc' 
tion,  for  the  expression  of  lofty  and  solemn  sentiments  he  has 
at  command  adequate  words.  Thus  he  employs  adjurati  ms,' 
unusual  words,^  and  stately  phrases  of  a  tragic  cast.* 

Isocrates  purposely  avoided  metaphors,  and  Lysias  instinc- 
tively shunned  figurative  language.  In  both  cases  clearness  of 
thought  was  thus  gained.  Demosthenes,  however,  is  a  thinker 
powerful  enough  to  master  his  language,  and  is  never  mastered 
by  it ;  and  he  accordingly  adds  to  the  variety  and  charm  of  hia 
style  by  a  free  use  of  similes  and  metaphors.  His  similes  have 
the  widest  range,  and  are  taken  with  equal  freedom  from  com- 
merce,^ building,^  war  and  athletics,'^  and  disease.^  More  seldom 
and  more  poetical  are  those  from  sea  and  sky.^  His  metaphors 
are  partly  nautical  ^°  (as  might  be  expected  from  the  orator  of  a 
maritime  nation),  but  still  more  largely  from  that  which  gave  a 
young  Athenian  much  of  his  education  and  occupied  a  good  deal 
of  the  thoughts  of  all  Athenians,  the  gymnasium.  And  within 
this  range  we  have  metaphors  from  running, ^^  wrestling,^^  and 
boxing,^^  as  well  as  from  the  decision  of  the  judges  ^*  and  the 
offering  of  prizes.  ^^ 

The  power  of  Demosthenes'  language,  however,  cannot  be 
accounted  for  solely  by  the  wealth  of  his  vocabulary  or  his 
variety  of  expression.  Words  appeal  as  well  to  the  ear  as  to 
the  mind,  and,  above  all,  in  oratory  a  sentence  must  have  its 
melody  as  well  as  its  meaning.  As,  however,  in  music,  no 
more  precise  definition  of  melody  can  be  found  than  that  it  is  a 
pleasing  combination  of  musical  sounds,  so  of  the  melody  of 
prose  we  can  say  little  more  than  that  it  is  the  pleasing  combi- 
nation of  spoken  sounds,  and  the  ultimate  test  of  melody  must 
be  made  by  the  ear.  This,  in  the  case  of  Demosthenes,  is  for 
us,  with  our  defective  knowledge  of  the  pronunciation  of  Greek, 

^  lb.  139,  209,  242  ;  the  compounds  are  Demosthenes'  coinage. 

'^  Adjurations  are  unknown  to  Isfeus  and  Andocides,  and  are  rare  in  other 
orators,  but  numerous  in  Demosthenes.  We  have,  e.g.  the  Homeric  vri  rbp 
Aid  Kai  Tov  'AttSWo)  Kal  Trjv  'Adrjvai' ',  also  vi}  rbv  'Hpa/cXeti,  v^  ttjv  Ari/MTjTpa. 
For  other  forms  see  De  Cor.  i,  8, 141,  158, 199,  201,  261,  294,  307,  324,  385. 

^  De  Cor.  195,  199,  204,  207.  *  lb.  141,  270. 

*  E.g.  Ohjn.  i.  11,  15  ;  Peace  12 ;  Phil.  iii.  38  ;  De  Cor.  297. 

*  E.g.  Olyn.  ii.  10 ;  Phil.  i.  26.  '  E.g.  Olyn.  iii.  17  ;  Phil.  iii.  17,  i.  4a 

*  E.g.  01.  ii.  21,  iii.  33 ;  Phil.  iii.  29  ;  De  Cor.  243. 

9  E.g.  Phil.  iii.  69,  De  Cor.  153  (celeV)rated),  194,  214,  308  (these  and  tht 
following  references  from  Rehdantz).  1*  E.g.  iiTrocrraXdjUffos,  Phil.  i.  51, 

1'  E.g.  irapipx^rai,  De  Cor.  7.  i*  E.g.  vvoaKeXl^eip,  ib.  138. 

W  Developed  into  a  simile,  Phil.  L  40.  ^*  E.g.  /Spa/Se i/oufft,  01.  iii.  aj, 

^  E.g.  in  (iiaif  KiiTai,  Phil.  i.  5. 


ORATORY  :    DEMOSTHENES.  43  I 

obviously  a  matter  of  difficulty.  Hence  it  is  advisable  to  rely 
on  the  ancient  theories  of  prose  rhythm. 

As  poetry  falls  into  verses,  so  prose  falls  into  divisions  called 
cola,  which  should,  on  the  average,  be  the  length  of  a  hexa- 
meter, i.e.  about  fifteen  syllables.  A  colon  is,  of  course,  rarely 
this  precise  length,  but  is  generally  longer  or  shorter,  and  not 
unfrequently  much  longer  or  shorter.  The  next  thing  to  under- 
stand with  regard  to  the  colon  is  how  it  is  related  to  what  we 
understand  by  a  sentence.  Several  cola  together  make  a  period, 
and  a  period  is  always  a  sentence  in  our  sense  of  the  word, 
though  a  sentence  is  not  always  a  period,  for  a  sentence  may 
consist  of  a  single  colon.  Thus,  "  I  have  no  ambition  "  is  a 
colon.  It  is  also  a  sentence.  But  it  is  not  a  period.  On  the 
other  hand,  "  I  have  no  ambition,  unless  it  be  the  ambition  to 
break  your  chain  and  contemplate  your  glory,"  is  a  sentence 
and  is  also  a  period,  consisting  of  two  cola,  the  first  of  which 
is,  "  I  have  no  ambition."  A  colon,  therefore,  is  a  complete 
thought,  or  a  portion  complete  in  itself  of  a  thought. 

A  colon  of  prose  is,  like  a  verse  of  poetry,  divisible  into 
metrical  feet ;  but  it  is  a  mark  of  bad  taste  or  of  negligence  if 
a  prose  writer  falls  into  verse,^  for  prose  and  poetry  are  different 
things.  The  metre  of  poetry  is  definite  and  recurrent,  while 
tliat  of  prose  is  not  at  all,  or  in  a  less  degree,  definite  and  recur- 
rent. But  although  the  metre  of  prose  must  not  be  identical 
with,  it  may  suggest  that  of  poetry.  The  end  of  a  verse  may 
be  used  at  the  beginning  of  a  colon,  or  the  beginning  at  the 
end.  Moreover,  the  more  unusual  the  verse  suggested,  the  more 
closely  the  colon  may  be  made  to  resemble  the  metre  of  the 
verse. '^ 

Demosthenes  shows  an  advance  on  previous  orators  in  respect 
of  prose  rhythm.  He  systematically  avoids  more  than  two  short 
syllables  at  a  time,  and  in  the  rhythmical  termination  of  a 
sentence  he  displays  much  variety.  As  a  rule,  a  long  syllable 
followed  by  short  ones  has  a  diminuendo  effect,  while  short 
syllables  followed  by  long  ones  have  a  crescendo  effect,  and  con- 
sequently the  latter  kind  of  rhythm  is  naturally  adapted  for  the 
termination  of  a  sentence.  Isocrates,  on  this  principle,  usually 
concludes  with  two  or  more  long  syllables.     Demosthenes,  how- 


1  A  great  number  of  iambics  may  be  found  in  Demosthenes ;  but  inas- 
much as  the  iambic  does  not  in  any  case  coincide  with  the  colon,  but  is 
divided  between  two  cola,  it  is  really  broken  up  by  the  pause  between  th« 
two  cola,  and  is  thus  no  violation  of  the  rule  that  verse  should  not  occur  in 
prose. 

^  E.g.  the  anapaestic  dimeter  or  a  logacedic 


43 2  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

ever,  without  lessening  the  impressive  effect  of  a  termination 
of  this  kind,  avoids  the  monotony  of  too  many  long  syllables.' 
Further,  there  are  to  be  found  in  Demosthenes  traces  of  recur- 
rent rhythm,  i.e.  cases  in  which  the  cola  of  a  period  correspond 
metrically  to  each  other.  Such  cases  of  rhythm  naturally  do 
not  pervade  a  speech,  but  are  to  be  looked  for  only  in  passages 
which,  for  some  reason  or  other,  are  carefully  and  deliberately 
elaborated  in  this  respect. 

Demosthenes'  intellectual  superiority,  the  second  source  of  hi? 
oratorical  power,  is  most  manifest  when  he  is  compared  with 
any  other  man  of  his  own  day.  He  saw  the  danger  with  which 
Macedon  threatened  Greece  before  any  other  Athenian  citizen, 
and  when  the  news  with  regard  to  Elatea  wakened  Athens  to 
the  truth,  there  is  no  doubt  that  Demosthenes  was,  as  he  him- 
self says,  the  only  man  who  had  any  reasoned  ideas  on  the  mea- 
sures which  it  was  necessary  to  take.  Again,  the  intellectual 
power  of  Demosthenes  as  an  orator  is  shown  by  the  skill  with 
which,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  he  carried  on  the  complicated  liti- 
gation against  his  guardians.  This  continued  throughout  his 
career,  and  is  strongly  illustrated  by  the  speech  on  the  Crown, 
which  illustrates  the  mental  grasp  which  enabled  him  to  suc- 
cessfully handle  a  large  mass  of  facts ;  and  still  more  clearly  do 
we  see  from  the  speeches  for  Phormio  and  against  Stephanurt 
(I.),  arguing,  as  they  practically  do,  the  same  case  from  opposite 
sides,  how  thoroughly  Demosthenes  could  understand  a  case. 
The  restless  energy  of  the  man  may  be  seen  in  almost  any  of 
his  speeches,  for  in  all  the  stream  of  argument  is  all-pervading 
and  perpetual 

Whether,  however,  the  intellectual  superiority  of  Demosthenes 
is  equally  great  when  he  is  compared  with  modern  orators  is 
another  question.  It  is  said  on  the  one  hand,  that  modern 
statesmen,  having  to  deal  with  problems  of  much  greater 
complexity  than  any  which  were  propounded  to  the  orators 
of  Athens,  are  educated  into  treating  these  complex  problems 
with  corresponding  thoroughness  in  their  speeches ;  while 
Athenian  orators  for  want  of  this  education  attained  to  lesa 
power  of  treatment.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  said  that  Demos- 
thenes, if  he  did  not  attain  certainty  of  demonstration,  at  least 
succeeds  in  conveying  to  the  minds  of  his  hearers  the  conclu- 


*  The  epitritic  ending  of  the  Second  Olynthiac  is  a  favourite  one— /SArto* 
rCiv  SKuv  vpayndruv  vfiXv  ix^f^W'  Demosthenes,  indeed,  uses  every  pos- 
sible mode  of  termination,  but  the  choriambus  and  the  fourth  paeon  "" — ) 
are  most  frequent. 


oratory:    DEMOSTHENES.  433 

Bions  lie  wished  them  to  adopt  and  the  reasons  for  adopting 
them,  with  a  clearness  not  to  be  gainsaid  or  surpassed.  He 
attacks  in  column  and  not  in  line.  Both  views  may  be  true. 
His  attack  is  irresistible  at  the  point  on  which  he  directs  it; 
but  he  does  not  defeat  the  whole  of  the  enemy's  line.  There 
remain  difficulties  and  objections  which  he  has  not  overthrown, 
because  he  has  not  attacked  them.  In  this  respect  therefore 
— as  compared  with  the  comprehensive  power  shown  in  modern 
expositions  of  policy  —the  intellectual  superiority  of  Demos- 
thenes needs  qualification. 

As  to  the  morality  of  Demosthenes  there  can  be  no  doubt ; 
indeed  the  tendency  is  to  make  too  much  of  it.  Demosthenes 
was  not  the  only  just  man  in  the  Athens  of  his  day.  "We  are 
apt  to  be  so  much  impressed  by  his  gloomy  pictures  of  Athens 
as  a  city  full  of  people  who  set  their  hearts  on  unworthy  objects 
and  gave  themselves  up  to  those  wicked  orators  who  lulled  them 
into  false  security  and  ignoble  ease,  that  we  come  to  think  of 
Demosthenes  as  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness  of  selfishness 
and  corruption.  But  although  it  is  true  that  there  was  an 
increasing  dearth  of  earnest  patriotism  at  Athens,  it  is  equally 
true  that  there  were  many  other  public  men  besides  Demos- 
thenes who  scorned  Philip's  gold  and  Alexander's  threats. 
Premising,  then,  that  Demosthenes  had  not  a  monopoly  of 
patriotism  and  was  not  the  sole  purveyor  of  political  morality 
to  the  Athenians  of  his  time,  we  may  fully  recognise  that  his 
speeches  are  uniformly  inspired  with  a  conviction  of  the  para- 
mount duty  of  doing  what  is  right.  Many  of  the  finest  passages 
of  the  Philippics  contain  the  sentiment  that  the  wicked  cannot 
prosper,  expressed  in  accents  of  real  feeling,  and  with  a  force  of 
conviction  that  cannot  be  resisted. 

Above  all,  and  most  appropriately,  the  speech  on  the  Crown 
is  marked  by  tbe  peace  of  mind  which  belongs  to  the  man  who 
has  known  the  right  and  done  it.  This  speech  has  much  in  it 
that  oflFends,  and  justly  offends,  modern  taste.  Like  the  speech 
against  Midias  and  that  on  the  Embassy,  it  has  at  first  sight  a 
narrow  and  personal  basis.  Like  those  speeches,  it  is  besmirched 
with  abuse,  personalities,  and  coarseness.  From  the  very  nature 
of  its  subject  it  was  impossible  that  it  should  be  conceived  or 
delivered  in  the  spirit  of  pure  patriotism  and  self-effacement 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  Philippics.  Of  those  speeches  it 
could  be  truly  said,  "  Tout  est  dit  pour  le  salut  commun,  aucun 
mot  n'est  pour  I'orateur."  But  from  a  speech  delivered  undei 
the  conditions  of  that  on  the  Crown  we  can  at  most  hope  that 
the  common  safety  will  not  come  off  worse  than  the  orator. 

2  B 


434  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE 

In  spite,  however,  of  all  these  inevitable  defects,  the  speech  ia 
the  greatest  which  Demosthenes  ever  made,  and  this  is  partly 
because  the  laudation  which  it  contains  of  himself  and  the 
country  is  tolerable,  and  even  laudable,  as  it  was  pronounced  in 
the  hour  of  misfortune,  wliich  he  shared  with  the  country,  and 
not  at  a  moment  of  triumph.  Principally,  however,  it  is  great 
because  the  speech  is  that  of  a  man  who  followed  honour  and 
the  right  steadfastly,  although  they  led  to  failure,  and  who  in 
spite  of  adversity  has  not  departed  from  his  faith  in  duty. ' 

Demosthenes'  patriotism  and  political  morality  has  always 
been  the  subject  of  eulogy,  but  his  private  character  have  not 
been  so  uniformly  fortunate.  Whether  he  was  or  was  not  loose 
in  his  private  life  is  a  question  which  can  be  hardly  answered 
in  the  negative,  solely  on  the  ground  of  his  notorious  habits  of 
hard  work  ;  nor  can  we  say  that  the  charge  is  improbable,  cer- 
tainly not  impossible,  and  this  is  all  we  need  say.  His  physical 
feebleness  and  cowardice  may  be  admitted.  He  fled  from 
Chseronea,  like  many  other  Athenians ;  and  from  his  earliest 
years  he  showed  a  constitutional  aversion  to  physical  training 
and  hardships.  That  his  cowardice,  however,  was  physical,  not 
moral,  we  have  only  to  look  at  his  life  to  see.  His  struggles 
with  his  gi;ardians  betray  no  weak-heartedness.  His  earliest 
demegories  took  up  the  unpopular  and  righteous  side  of  the 
questions  he  dealt  with  ;  and  throughout  his  subsequent  political 
life  he  was  mainly  engaged  in  telling  the  people,  from  whose 
approval  alone  he  could  expect  any  reward,  unpleasant  truths. 

Finally,  there  remains  the  charge  of  corruption.  He  was  said 
to  have  accepted  secret  presents  of  gold  from  the  great  king  ; 
but  a  charge  of  that  kind  was  easily  made,  and,  if  believed  at  all, 
was  likely  to  be  damaging,  though  hard  or  impossible  to  prove 
or  disprove,  and  may  be  disregarded.  Demosthenes  is  more 
seriously  implicated  in  the  Harpalus  affair.  When,  in  B.C.  324, 
Harpalus,  Alexander's  treasurer,  having  absconded  with  700 
talents  of  his  master's  money,  had  received  refuge  in  Athens, 
the  Athenians  were  alarmed  by  an  imperative  demand  for  his 
surrender.  Harpalus  certainly  made  a  free  use  of  bribes,  and 
Demosthenes'  conduct  gave  rise  to  a  suspicion  that  he  too  had 
been  bribed.  In  the  first  place,  he  spoke  against  surrendering 
Harpalus.  In  the  next,  he  connived  at  the  escape  of  Harpalus 
from  Athens  ;  and  thirdly,  when  at  this  time  Alexander  de- 
manded to  be  included  amongst  the  gods  of  the  Athenians, 
Demosthenes  advised  compliance  with  the  somewhat  impious 
request.  The  result  of  this  suspicious  behaviour  was  a  pre- 
liminary investigation  by  the  Areopagus,  which  named  Demos- 


oratory:    DEMOSTHENES.  435 

thenes  as  one  of  the  orators  bribed  by  Harpalus.  The  prosecution 
which  followed  was  conducted  by  Hyperides,  and  ended  in  the 
condemnation  of  Demosthenes,  who  thereupon  fled  into  exile. 

In  discussing  the  Harpalus  affair,  it  is  advisable  to  begin  by 
etating  that  the  decision  of  the  Areopagus  and  the  result  of 
the  trial  cannot  be  regarded  as  proving  anything.  The  people 
were  in  a  state  of  panic,  such  that  their  only  idea  was  to  con- 
demn somebody,  while  the  Areopagus,  if  not  incapable,  was  not 
adapted  to  ascertaining  the  truth.  We  are  then  reduced  to 
examining  the  conduct  of  Demosthenes,  to  see  whether  it  ia 
capable  of  being  explained  on  no  better  hypothesis  than  that  of 
bribery.  His  behaviour  was  certainly  tortuous  ;  but  it  is  clear 
that  he  had  no  intention  from  the  first  of  fighting  Alexander, 
else  he  would  not  have  taken  the  steps  he  did  for  making  Har- 
palus' money — the  very  nerves  of  war — unavailable  by  making 
the  state  responsible  for  it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally 
clear  that  he  had  no  intention  of  surrendering  Harpalus,  else  he 
would  not  have  connived  at  his  escape.  It  seems,  therefore, 
that,  with  the  wiliness  supposed  to  be  characteristic  of  the  Greek, 
he  endeavoured  to  steer  a  middle  course  between  the  danger  of 
affronting  Alexander  and  the  national  disgrace  of  surrendering 
Harpalus.  This  he  might  think  he  could  succeed  in  if  Har- 
palus happened  to  escape  and  leave  his  money  behind.  The 
Athenians  would  have  the  sufficient  reason  that  Harpalus  was 
no  longer  in  their  hands  to  allege  for  not  surrendering  him ; 
while  they  might  hope  to  soothe  any  resentment  on  the  part  of 
Alexander  by  returning  the  money.  If  so,  the  plan  was  spoiled 
by  the  deficiency  in  Harpalus'  accounts.  The  Athenians  found 
they  had  neither  the  money  nor  the  person  of  Harpalus  where- 
with to  satisfy  Alexander.  Hence  came  the  necessity  of  sub- 
mitting— and  to  Demosthenes  it  was  probably  a  hard  necessity 
— to  Alexanders  demand  to  be  worshipped  as  a  god. 

The  conduct  of  Demosthenes  is  then  quite  intelligible  without 
supposing  that  he  was  bribed  by  Harpalus.  This  is  all  we  can 
say.  In  all  probability,  however,  Demosthenes  has  himself  to 
thank  for  any  suspicions  which  may  still  attach  to  him.  He 
has  dwelt  so  powerfully  upon  the  universal  corruption  among 
his  contemporaries,  and  has  been  taken  so  literally  at  his  word, 
that  it  is  not  strange  that  there  should  be  doubts  whether,  if 
bribery  was  so  common,  even  he  was  altogether  spotless. 

In  exile  he  continued  to  exert  himself  for  the  cause  of  Greek 
independence.  When  recalled,  Demosthenes,  to  escape  from 
Antipater,  committed  suicide  at  JEgina.  in  B.C.  42a. 


43 6        HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  CONTEMPORARIES  OP  DEMOSTHENES:  THE  ANTI- 
MACEDONIAN  PARTY. 

Wb  have  said  that  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  Ihat 
Demosthenes  was  the  only  patriot  amongst  the  orators  of  hia 
time  in  Athens.  In  addition  to  Hyperides,^  Lycurgus,  and 
Hegesippus,  of  whom  we  shall  have  to  say  something  in  this 
chapter,  we  can  quote  ^  other  orators  who,  like  Demosthenes, 
offered  a  worthy  resistance  to  the  Macedonian  power,  such  as 
Polyeuctus,  Sphettus,  Diophantus,  Moerocles,  whose  surrender 
was  demanded  by  Alexander,  Aristophon,  and  Demochares,  the 
nephew  of  Demosthenes.  Further,  though  less  important, 
there  are  Callisthenes,  Democrates,  Ephialtes,  Damon,  Timar- 
chus,  Hegesander,  Himerseus,  Demon,  Aristonicus,  and  Clito- 
machus. 

That  there  should  be  differences  of  opinion  amongst  such  a 
numerous  party  on  the  precise  means  by  which  their  common 
object  was  to  be  obtained  is  not  surprising  ;  and  we  find  that 
here,  as  elsewhere  in  politics,  there  was  an  extreme  and  a 
moderate  party.  Of  the  former  section,  which  advocated,  even 
after  the  battle  of  Ch?eronea,  desperate  and  uncompromising 
resistance  to  the  Macedonians,  the  foremost  orator  was  Hype- 
rides.  The  division  between  the  extreme  and  moderate  sections 
of  the  anti-Macedonian  party  came  to  a  violent  breach  in  con- 
sequence of  the  Harpalus  affair.  Demosthenes,  who  then  had 
the  guidance  of  affairs,  was  averse  to  breaking  into  open  oppo- 
sition to  Alexander,  and  accordingly  brought  forward  a  proposal 
which,  by  making  the  state  responsible  to  Alexander  for  the 
money  Harpalus  had  absconded  with  to  Athens,  effectually  pre- 
cluded any  possibility  of  using  this  money  for  the  purpose  of 
war  against  Alexander.  Further,  when  his  scheme  for  appeas- 
ing Alexander  and  yet  preserving  the  dignity  of  Athens  broke 
down,  Demosthenes  was  reduced  to  advocate  the  claim  of  Alex- 
ander to  be  included  among  the  Athenian  gods.  This  piece  of 
servility  alone  was  needed  to  complete  the  exasperation  of  the 
extreme  party,  whose  desire  was  from  the  first  for  a  straight- 
forward policy  of  open  war,  which  might  have  been  desperate, 
but  would  have  been  honourable.  This  policy  had  now  been 
rendered  completely  imj^ossible  by  the  line  of  action  taken  bj 

*  The  proper  spelling  is  Hypereidea. 

*  See  Westermann,  G.  B.  I.  93. 


oratory:    contemporaries  of  DEMOSTHENES.       437 

Demosthenes,  but  he  might  be  prevented  from  further  mischief, 
and  accordingly  we  find  Hyperides  acting  as  his  accuser  in  the 
trial  which  ended  in  Demosthenes'  flight. 

"VVTien  Hyperides  was  born  is  uncertain,  but  as  he  was  de- 
livering political  speeches^  in  B.C.  360,  he  can  hardly  have  been 
younger  than  Demosthenes,  who  was  born  B.C.  383,  and  de- 
livered his  first  speech  in  B.C.  363.  He  was  probably  a  pupil 
of  Isocrates  (though  he  bears  no  deep  marks  of  his  influence), 
but  not,  as  is  sometimes  said,  of  Plato.  Hyperides,  as  he  staked 
his  life  for  his  country,  so  was  at  all  times  ready  to  spend  his 
money  in  the  service  of  the  country.  In  B.C.  350  he  contri- 
buted towards  the  expedition  to  Euboea  against  Philip,  spon- 
taneously, two  fully  equipped  triremes ;  and  ten  years  later 
he  not  only  discharged  the  expensive  duties  of  choregus  in  a 
magnificent  manner,  but,  disdaining  to  avail  himself  of  the 
immunity  allowed  by  law,  also  contributed  his  share  to  the 
expedition  against  Byzantium.  And  he  did  not  limit  his  patri- 
otism to  merely  giving  his  money,  but  was  always  ready  to 
give  his  services,  and  especially  at  times  of  despair  and  danger. 
After  the  fall  of  Elatea,  and  again  after  the  battle  of  Chaeronea, 
he  was  foremost  in  his  endeavours  to  organise  every  possible 
kind  of  resistance.  In  the  absence  of  Demosthenes,  after  the 
Harpalus  aff"air,  Hyperides,  together  with  Leostlienes  (on  whom 
he  subsequently  pronounced  the  Funeral  Oration  which  has 
come  down  to  us),  commenced  and  carried  on  the  Lamian  war. 
Finally,  after  the  defeat  at  Crannon,  he  Avas  captured  and  killed 
with  circumstances  of  cruelty  by  Antipater  in  B.C.  322. 

Whether  Hyperides  did  wisely  for  the  state  in  attacking 
Demosthenes  over  the  Harpalus  affair  is  a  question  we  need 
not  here  discuss,  but  his  policy  of  open  and  honourable  action 
against  Alexander  wins  our  sj^mpathy,  as  the  pure,  unselfish, 
and  uniform  patriotism  of  his  life  commands  our  admiration. 
And  his  speeches  show  us,  what  he  who  reads  only  Demosthenes 
would  hardly  discover,  that  at  Athens  a  man  might  be  a  poli- 
tician, a  patriot,  and  yet  a  gentleman.  The  speech  of  Hyperides 
against  Demosthenes  contains  none  of  the  vulgar  abuse  which 
difaces  the  pages  of  Demosthenes'  speeches  against  Midias  or 
on  the  Embassy,  or  even  on  the  Crown.  Hyperides  was  un 
doubtedly  a  profligate.  It  is  he  of  whom  the  story  is  told  that, 
when  pleading  for  Phryne,  and  despairing  of  winning  the  case 
by  any  other  means,  he  revealed  the  charms  of  his  client  and 
secured  a  verdict.  The  story  is  false.  He  did,  however,  plead 
lor  Phryne,  and  for  or  against  half-a-dozen  other  hetserse  ;  and 
^  The  last  speech  against  Autocles  dates  B.0,  360. 


438  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

scandal  goes  so  far  as  to  allege  that  he  carried  on  liaisons  with 
as  many  as  three  of  these  ladies  at  once.  But  whereas  the  scan- 
dals connected  with  Demosthenes  make  us  think  of  Tiberius, 
Hyperides  reminds  us  of,  and  we  can  be  no  more  angry  with 
him  than  we  are  with  Charles  Surface.  The  same  wit,  polish, 
and  good  breeding  characterise  both. 

In  the  history  of  Greek  oratory  Hyperides  is  a  second  Lyaiaa 
"When  we  come  to  Hyperides,  we  miss  the  intense  and  mar- 
vellous earnestness  of  Demosthenes,  which  is  apt  to  become ' 
monotonous,  and  we  are  no  longer  exposed  to  his  powerful,  and 
indeed  overpowering,  command  of  oratory.  On  the  other  hand, 
and  in  compensation,  we  get  back  to  the  grace,  the  ease,  and  the 
simplicity  of  Lysias.  There  is  nothing  stilted  or  studied  about 
Hyperides.  His  speeches  read  as  though  they  were  thrown  off 
by  the  author  without  the  least  effort  or  even  premeditation. 
They  are  none  the  less  effective.  Easy  and  unconcerned  as 
Hyperides  is,  he  has  an  iron  grasp.  Although  in  his  longer 
sentences  he  lets  his  words  fall  from  his  lips  in  the  most  natural 
manner,  just  as  they  occur  to  him,  he  brings  the  sentence  to  a 
graceful  close,  which  is  the  more  effective  because  unexpected. 
Like  most  other  authors,  he  has  his  anacolutha,  and  he  is  in 
particular  liable  to  a  careless  yet  not  offensive  repetition  of 
•words.  Again,  although  he  generally  allows  the  course  of  the 
sentence  to  wander  about  in  this  unconcerned  way,  only  recall- 
ing it  when  it  has  to  be  brought  to  a  conclusion,  he  can,  when 
he  cares  to  rouse  himself  for  a  moment  from  his  often  languid 
attitude  (which  one  suspects  is  not  languid  at  all  in  reality,  but 
assumed  to  avoid  making  a  display  of  his  strength),  rap  out 
sharp,  short  sentences,  which  show  anything  but  weakness.  In 
fact,  Hyperides  has  all  the  grace  and  charm  of  Lysias  with  the 
further  advantage,  which  Lysias  did  not  enjoy,  of  living  after 
Lysias.  Hyperides  has  before  him  the  example  of  Lysias  and 
of  another  generation  in  oratory.  He  has  power  as  well  as  grace 
of  expression  ;  nor  is  he  so  limited  in  the  range  of  his  vocabu- 
lary as  was  Lysias.  Hyperides  is  even  less  constrained  and 
more  easy  in  his  choice  of  words  than  Demosthenes.  He  speaks 
in  a  distinctly  conversational  style,  and  uses  words  which  might 
pass  in  conversation  or  in  comedy,  but  were  usually  avoided  in 
compositions  as  wanting  in  dignity. ^     But  still  more  is  he  supe- 

*  As  the  writer  trepl  Sxf/ovs  even  seems  to  have  felt,  c.  34,  oi  irdvra  i^TJl 
Kal  ixovot6vo3s  ojs  0  Ar]fj.oa6ii>rjs  X^ei. 

~  E.g,  Kp6vo%,  iu  the  sense  of  "an  old  fool";  (fOK/ci5fetJ'  =  '*tocock-a«doodle« 
doo,"  whereas  it  was  proper  to  talk  of  the  cock's  song  (q.5€iv) — yaXedypa  (a 
eat-trap)  for  "piison;"  and  the  comic  superlative   and  diminutives,  /xoi>- 


ORATORY  :    CONTEMPORARIES  OF  DEMOSTHENES.       439 

rior  to  Lysias  in  the  arrangement  of  his  subject-matter.  The 
arguments  of  Lj'sias  are  brought  forward  one  after  another  in  a 
disjointed  manner  with  no  pretence  of  connection  or  unity.  But 
Hyperides,  who  had  Isocrates  before  him,  effects  the  transition 
from  one  argument  to  another  in  the  smoothest  and  neatest  of 
•ways.  Above  all,  and  most  characteristic  of  Hyperides  is  it 
that  he  is  throughout  a  gentleman.  His  politeness,  especially 
when  he  is  making  a  crushing  retort,  is  scrupulous.  Emotion 
probably,  the  display  of  emotion  certainly,  he  regarded  as  bad 
form.  Accordingly,  he  not  only  avoids  anything  tragic  or  ex- 
aggerated himself,  but  he  is  especially  happy  in  the  quiet  irony 
with  which  he  treats  any  such  display  from  the  opposite  side. 
He  met  a  solemn  appeal  to  and  a  dreadful  picture  of  the  terrors 
of  the  next  world  by  the  simple  query,  "  And  if  a  sword  does 
hang  over  the  neck  of  Tantalus,  how  is  the  defendant  to 
blame  1 " 

It  will,  however  perhaps  be  better  to  study  Hyperides  ii 
the  concrete,  and  for  this  purpose  we  will  take  the  speech  foi 
Euxenippus.  This  speech  was  delivered  under  these  circum- 
stances. "When  the  common  land  of  Oropus,  which  was  given 
to  the  Athenians  by  Philip  after  the  battle  of  Chaeronea,  had 
been  divided  by  lot  among  the  tribes  of  Athens,  it  was  dis- 
covered that  the  portion  which  fell  to  the  lot  of  two  of  the  tribes 
liad  been  previously  dedicated  to  the  hero  Amphiaraus ;  and,  in 
order  to  discover  whether  to  occupj'^  this  land  would  provoke  the 
hero's  wrath,  Euxenippus  was  commissioned  to  sleep  in  the  temple 
of  Amphiaraus  and  report  his  dreams — which  not  imnaturally 
were  in  favour  of  occupying  the  land.  Whereupon,  a  certain 
Polyeuctus  proposed  that,  notwithstanding,  the  land  should  be 
appropriated  to  the  hero  and  not  to  the  tribes.  His  proposal  was 
rejected  and  he  was  fined.  Polyeuctus  then  proceeds  to  bring 
an  impeachment  ^  against  Euxenippus,  in  that,  being  an  orator  ^ 
(whioh  Euxenippus  was  not),  he  had  not  advised  people  for  the 
best. 

Athenian  law,  although  it  insisted  that  the  parties  to  any  suit 
should  themselves  speak,  permitted  a  man's  friends  to  also  speak 
for  him.  One  of  the  supporters  ^  of  Euxenippus  on  this  occa- 
sion, doubtless  paid,  as  were  such  supporters  usually,  was  Hype- 
rides. He  did  not  deliver  the  leading  speech,  but  followed  with 
a  deuterology.     Accordingly  he  has  not  to  set  forth  the  facts  of 

iiroTOs,  iraiddpiov,  6epa.TT6vri.ov,  dv5pair6dia.  Add  /c6pij  (a  maiden),  meaning 
an  Attic  coin  bearing  the  image  of  Athene  ;  cf.  "  yellow-boys."  For  a  com- 
plete list  see  H.  Hager,  De  Gracitate  Hyperidea. 

^  eiffayyiKla. 

'  I.e.  a  politician  by  profession,  such  as  Demostbene*.  ^  cwriyopoL 


440  HISTOKY  OF  GKEEK  LITEKATURE. 

the  case,  but  to  say  what  he  can  to  make  a  favourable  impres- 
sion on  behalf  of  Euxenippus,  and  this  is  the  delightfully 
casual  way  in  which  he  begins  :  "  Well,  gentlemen,  I,  as  I  was 
just  saying  to  those  sitting  near  me,  am  astonished  you  are  not 
sick  of  impeachments  of  this  kind."  Formerly  men  were  im- 
peached for  betraying  ships  or  towns.  "But  now  what  happens 
is  quite  absurd.  Diognides  and  Antidorus,  the  metic,  are  im- 
peached for  paying  more  than  the  law  allows  for  flute-players  -, 
and  Euxenippus  for  the  dreams  he  says  he  has  had,"  neither  of 
which  offences  makes  a  man  liable  to  be  impeached  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  impeachment.  But  Polyeuctus  says,  Do  not 
look  at  what  the  law  says.  "Whereas,  this  is  just  what  I  indeed 
should  have  said  was  the  first  thing  to  do.  In  a  democracy 
(note  the  adroit  appeal  to  the  jury's  patriotism)  we  act  accord- 
ing to  the  law.  "  A  man  commits  sacrilege  :  indict  him  before 
the  king-archon  !  is  undutiful  to  his  parents  :  the  archon  tries 
the  case  !  a  man  proposes  illegal  motions  :  there  is  the  college 
of  the  Thesmothetse  !  merits  summary  proceedings  :  the  Eleven 
are  in  existence,"  and  so  on.  Every  offence  has  its  law,  and 
every  law  has  its  offences  against  which  it  is  directed.  The  law 
of  impeachment  is  expressly  limited  to  "  orators,"  and  very 
sensibly  too,  else  orators  would  get  all  the  profits  of  their  pro- 
fession, and  run  no  risks.  However,  Polyeuctus  says  that  to 
this  law,  in  virtue  of  which  he  is  bringing  this  charge,  you  must 
pay  no  attention  !  Other  complainants,  indeed,  insist  on  your 
keeping  the  defendant  to  the  law,  but  you  (turning  politely  to 
Polyeuctus)  say,  Do  not  let  him  rest  his  defence  on  the  law. 
Moreover,  he  says  that  the  defendant,  inexperienced  as  he  is  in 
speaking,  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  have  any  friends  to  assist 
him ;  whereas  this  has  always  been  allowed.  Did  you  (again 
turning  to  Polyeuctus,  and  more  politely  than  before)  never 
avail  yourself  of  this  custom  1  Why,  when  you  were  put  on 
your  defence  by  Alexander  of  Oios,  you  applied  for  ten  sup- 
porters to  assist  you,  and  I  was  one  of  them.  Need  more  be 
said  1  except  that  on  the  present  trial  you  have  Lycurgus, 
whom  we  all  respect,  and  who  is  the  best  orator  of  our  day,  to 
render  you  assistance.  Then,  whether  defendant  or  plaintiff, 
you,  who  can  speak  well  enough  to  bother  a  whole  city,  are  to 
have  assistance,  and  Euxenippus,  who  is  old  and  not  accustomed 
to  public  speaking,  is  to  have  none  ?  But,  of  course,  you  will 
say  he  has  committed  such  dreadful  crimes.  Let  us  there- 
fore see.  If  he  spoke  the  truth  about  his  dream,  where  is  his 
crime  1  if  not,  you  ought  to  have  gone  to  Delphi  and  inquired 
the  truth.     But  instead,  you  brought  forward  a  proposal  (which 


ORATORY  :    CONTEMPORARIES  OF  DEMOSTHENES.        44 1 

was  not  only  unjust,  but  contradicted  itself),  and  got  fined, 
and  so  Euxenippus  must  suffer,  and  not  be  even  buried  in 
Attic  ground,  because  (this  bridges  over  the  transition  to  the 
next  charge  alleged  against  Euxenippus)  he  allowed  Olympias 
to  dedicate  an  offering  to  Hygieia,  thereby  showing  his  Mace- 
donian tendencies.  But  the  very  boys  from  school  know  who 
takes  Macedonian  gold,  and  nobody  imagines  Euxenippus  ever 
thought  of  such  a  thing.  But  there  seems  to  me,  Polyeuctus, 
nothing  you  cannot  convert  into  an  accusation.  Yet,  •vith  your 
power  of  oratory  (again  notice  Hyperides'  politeness),  you 
ought  to  prosecute  men  who  really  can  injure  the  country,  not 
men  like  Euxenippus — or  any  of  the  jury  (note  the  dexterous 
identification).  That  is  what  I  did  when  I  impeached  Aristo- 
phon  and  Diopithes  and  Philocrates,  and  I  quoted  the  very 
words  in  which  they  failed  to  advise  the  city  for  the  best, 
whereas  you  can  quote  no  such  words  uttered  by  Euxenippus 
{Euxenippus,  of  course,  had  been  commissioned  to  dream,  and 
he  dreamed,  but  he  never  offered  any  advice  of  any  description 
to  the  city).  And  then  you  try  to  rouse  ill  feeling  against  him 
by  accusing  him  of  being  rich.  "  You  do  not  seem  to  know, 
Polyeuctus,  that  there  is  no  democracy  in  the  whole  world,  no 
monarch  nor  nation,  more  noble  than  the  democracy  of  Athens," 
and  that  consequently  sycophants  (here  he  gives  instances)  are 
righteously  punished  here.  "Before  sitting  down,  I  will  make  one 
short  remark  more  about  the  vote  you  are  going  to  give.  When, 
gentlemen  of  the  jury,  you  are  about  to  consider  your  verdict, 
bid  the  clerk  read  to  you  the  impeachment,  the  law  of  impeach- 
ment, and  the  juror's  oath.  Put  on  one  side  all  our  speeches. 
Look  at  the  impeachment  and  the  law,  and  what  you  think  just 
and  true,  that  give  as  your  verdict.  Now,  Euxenippus,  I  have 
done  my  best  for  you.  The  next  thing  is  to  get  leave  from  the 
jury,  and  call  your  friends,  and  bring  up  your  cliildren." 

This  summary  can  only  give  a  faint  idea  of  the  careless  grace 
of  the  speech  for  Euxenippus.  "We  can  well  understand  that 
the  author  of  the  ancient  treatise  "  On  the  Sublime  "  was  quite 
right  in  saying^  that  "no  one  ever  felt  frightened  when  reading 
Hyperides."  But  Polyeuctus  must  have  felt  a  certain  amount 
of  alarm  when  he  saw  Hyperides  get  up  from  his  bench,  break- 
ing off  a  conversation  with  his  neighbours,  and  begin  in  his 
calm  unconcerned  manner  to  quietly  but  effectually  pull  him  to 
pieces.  The  power  of  Hyperides  is  rendered  all  the  more  forcible, 
in  the  first  place,  because  he  makes  no  display  of  liis  strength. 
On  the  contrary,  he  is  so  strong  that  he  feels  no  need  to  put 

1  Oh.  34. 


442  mSTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATDBE. 

forth  his  strength,  but  treats  everybody  with  consideration  and 
inbred  politeness.  Thus  at  the  end  of  the  speech  for  Euxenippua 
he  modestly  says,  "  Now,  Euxenippus,  I  have  done  my  best 
for  you.  The  next  thing  is,"  &c.  With  this  we  may  compare 
the  end  of  the  speech  for  Lycophron.  "If  you  will  allow  me, 
gentlemen,  I  will  ask  some  one  to  support  me.  Come  here, 
Theophilus,  and  say  what  you  can  for  me.  The  jury  give  you 
permission."  In  the  next  place,  the  power  of  Hyperides  is 
rendered  the  more  forcible  by  the  attitude  which  he  assumes. 
Demosthenes,  even  in  his  deuterologies,  always  takes  up  a  some- 
what hostile  attitude  towards  the  jury.  He  uses  his  technical 
power  and  his  irresistible  force  of  argument  as  though  the  jury 
were  not  with  him.  Lysias,  on  the  other  hand,  does  not  rely 
on  his  arguments ;  he  seeks  to  bring  over  the  jury  by  his 
winning  and  artless  manner  of  stating  his  case.  But  Hyperides 
in  the  speech  for  Euxenippus  does  not  seem  to  be  speaking  as 
an  advocate  at  all.  His  attitude  is  rather  that  of  a  bystander — 
a  bystander,  however,  who,  as  he  casually  allows  it  to  be  seen, 
knows  a  good  deal  about  the  matter  in  hand,  and  who  merely 
gets  up  to  see  fair  play.  "  Never  mind  what  the  advocates 
say,  but  judge  of  the  law  for  yourselves,"  is  what  he  says  to  the 
jury.  With  all  this  gentleness  of  manner,  however,  and  apparent 
impartiality,  he  was  capable  of  making  some  very  sharp  thrusts, 
as  when  he  disposed  of  the  rhetoric  of  Demeas  (son  of  Demades 
by  a  flute-player)  with  the  quiet  criticism,  "  Pray  cease  !  you 
make  more  noise  than  your  mother." 

The  speech  for  Lycophron,  delivered  some  time  before  b.c.  338, 
is  like  the  speech  for  Euxenippus,  an  instance  of  how  the  law 
of  impeachment  might  be  abused.  One  section  of  this  law 
provided  that  any  man  might  be  impeached  who,  "  being  an 
orator,  advised  the  people  not  for  the  best."  It  was,  however, 
a  considerable  strain  on  the  law,  as  Hyperides  points  out,  to 
bring  it  against  Euxenippus,  who  was  not  an  orator  (in  this 
sense  of  the  term),  and  had  not  offered  any  advice  of  any 
kind,  but  only  had  a  dream,  as  required  by  the  state.  So  too 
Lycophron,  if  guilty,  was  guilty  of  adultery,  but  he  was  accused 
by  Lycurgus  under  the  section  of  the  law  directed  against 
attempts  to  "  subvert  the  democracy,"  the  argument  being  that 
attacks  on  private  morality  shook  the  foundations  of  govern- 
ment. Of  Hyperides'  speech  on  behalf  of  Lycophron  we  possess 
only  fragments,  but  the  history  of  these  and  of  the  other  three 
speeches  of  Hyperides  which  we  possess  is  extremely  interesting. 
As  late  as  the  sixteenth  century  there  was  a  considerable  number 
of  Hyperides'  speeches  extant  in  MS.  in    he  King's  Library  at 


oratory:    CONTEMPORAR.es  of  DEMOSTHENES.       443 

Buda,  but  after  the  capture  of  that  city  by  the  Turks  in  1526, 
this  copy  of  Hyperides  disappeared.  From  tliat  time,  <;on- 
sequently,  for  more  tlian  three  centuries,  beyond  the  descriptions 
of  Hyperides'  style  to  be  found  in  ancient  literary  critics,  such 
as  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  (b.c.  70-B.c.  8)  or  Longinus  (a.d. 
213-273),  the  only  knowledge  of  Hyperides  was  what  might  be 
obtained  from  words  of  his  quoted  by  lexicographers,  such  as 
Julius  Pollux  (who  flourished  about  a.d.  180,  and  wrote  an 
Onomasticon),  or  Harpocration  (who  lived  in  the  third  or  fourth 
century  after  Christ,  and  wrote  a  "  Lexicon  of  the  Ten  Orators  "), 
and  from  passages  (especially  the  peroration  of  the  Funeral 
Oration)  quoted  by  Stobseus  (flourished  about  A.D.  520)  in  his 
"Selections  or  Anthology  of  Apophthegms  and  Precepts." 

But  in  1847  ^I''-  -^-  C.  Harris  purchased  at  Thebes  in  Egypt 
from  an  Italian  dealer  in  antiquities  some  rolls  of  papyrus,  which 
proved  to  contain  fragments  of  Hyperides'  speech  against  De- 
iBosthenes,  and  of  the  beginning  of  that  for  Lycophron.  In  the 
same  year  and  at  the  same  place,  Mr.  Joseph  Arden  was  offered 
by  the  Arabs  of  the  neighbourhood  a  papyrus  volume  which  he 
bought,  and  which  was  discovered  to  contain  the  latter  part  of 
the  speech  for  Lycophron,  and  the  whole  of  that  for  Euxenippus. 
Nine  years  later,  in  1856,  Mr.  H.  Stobart  purchased  at  Thebes 
a  papyrus  volume  which  turned  out  to  be  the  Funeral  Oration 
by  Hyperides. 

The  papyri  of  Mr.  Harris  and  Mr.  Arden  originally  consti- 
tuted one  volume,  which  was  torn  up  by  the  Arabs  in  order  to 
obtain  a  price  for  each  of  the  parts.  As  to  the  age  of  this 
volume,  so  great  an  authority  as  the  present  Bishop  of  Durham 
has  placed  it,  on  palaeographic  grounds,  not  later  than  the  mid- 
dle of  the  second  century  before  Christ ;  but,  while  palaeography 
is  in  its  present  immature  state,  it  does  not  seem  possible  to  do 
more,  on  palaeographic  grounds,  than  place  the  manuscript,  as 
Blass  ^  does,  between  that  date  and  the  time  of  Hadrian  or  the 
Antonines.  Mr.  Stobart's  volume,  which  contains  the  Funeral 
Oration,  admits  of  a  more  precise  date.  It  contains,  in  addition 
to  the  Funeral  Oration,  a  horoscope,  of  which  the  language  is 
mainly  Egyptian,  though  written  in  Greek  characters.  This 
koroscope  contains  the  position  of  the  planets  at  the  time  of 
the  taking  of  the  horoscope,  and  it  has  been  ascertained  by 
astronomical  computations  that  the  horoscope  was  cast  either 
far  April  i,  a.d.  95,  or  for  May  15,  a.d.  155.  And  as  the  horo- 
Bcope  was  written  on  the  papyrus  before  the  funeral  oration, 
I  he  latter  must  be  later  than  a.d.  95.  If  these  astronomical 
*  Hyperides:  Triibner,  1881. 


444  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

calculations  may  be  relied  on,  and  the  volume  containing  the 
Funeral  Oration  (although  much  more  carelessly  written)  belongs, 
as  is  probable,  to  the  same  date  as  the  other  volume,  then  we 
have  another  reason  for  not  dating  the  volume  containing  the 
law  speeches  before  Christ,  at  all  events. 

The  speech  against  Demosthenes  ^  we  have  already  alluded 
to  in  connection  with  the  Harpalus  affair.  The  leading  speech 
for  the  prosecution  in  this  trial  was  made  by  Stratocles,  who 
was  probably  followed  by  several  other  speakers  before  it  came 
to  the  turn  of  Hyperides  to  deliver  his  speech.  The  text  has 
unfortunately  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  Arabs  who  tore  up 
this  papyrus  before  selling  it,  but  the  outline  of  the  speech  can 
be  made  out  still.  As,  like  the  speech  for  Euxenippus,  this  is 
a  deuterology,  Hyperides  has  not  to  set  forth  the  facts  of  the 
case,  but  to  make  as  damaging  an  impression  as  possible.  This 
he  does  without  any  heat  and  without  any  vulgarity.  He  be- 
gins in  the  same  easy  manner  as  in  the  speech  for  Euxenippus : 
**  Well,  gentlemen,  I  am  astonished  so  much  ceremony  should 
be  made  about  Demosthenes."  The  accusation  he  treats  as  re- 
quiring no  proof — the  investigation  by  the  Areopagus  has  settled 
the  matter.  Moreover,  Demosthenes  had  not  attempted  to  de- 
fend himself,  but  instead,  "you  go  about  challenging  the  senate 
to  say  where  you  got  the  money,  who  gave  it  you,  and  when. 
Perhaps  you  will  proceed  to  also  ask  what  you  did  with  the 
money  when  you  got  it,  as  though  the  senate  kept  your  banking 
account."  The  admissions  of  Demosthenes'  friends  were  equally 
damaging,  for  they  hinted  that  the  money  had  indeed  gone,  but 
gone  to  remedy  a  deficit  in  the  public  treasury.  Then  Hyper- 
ides, having  done  his  best  to  prove  tliat  Demosthenes  was 
bribed  by  Harpalus,  goes  on  to  prove  that  he  had  also  been  for 
a  long  time  in  tlie  habit  of  taking  bribes  from  Alexander. 
After  this  the  speech  becomes  very  fragmentary,  and  we  will 
not  attempt  any  further  analysis.  We  will  only  say,  that  if 
even  Hyperides  could  not  satisfactorily  explain  the  behaviour 
of  Demosthenes  on  the  hypothesis  that  he  was  bribed  by  Har- 
palus, but  had  to  resort  to  the  further  (and  very  improbable) 
hypothesis  that  he  was  also  bribed  by  Alexander,  we  may  con- 
clude that  the  case  against  Demosthenes,  so  far  as  being  bribed 
by  Harpalus  is  concerned,  is  not  very  strong. 

By  far  the  most  important  discovery,  however,  among  the 

papyri,  indeed  the  most  important  for  a  century  back,  was  that 

of  the  Funeral  Oration.     For  more  than  a  centuiy  and  a  half  it 

was  the  custom  at  Athens  for  a  funeral  oration  to  be  publicly 

^  Kara  Atj/MoaOivovi  virip  twv  'ApiraXeltay. 


oratory:    contemporaries  of  DEMOSTHENES.       445 

delivered  at  the  public  funeral  of  those  men  who  had  met  their 
death  while  fighting  for  the  country.  In  the  famous  Funeral 
Oration  of  Pericles,  as  given  by  Thucydides,  we  doubtless  have 
most  of  the  ideas  expressed  by  Pericles  in  that  speech,  but  the 
language  and  the  form  are  unmistakably  the  work  of  Tliucy- 
dides.  In  addition  to  this,  we  have  a  Funeral  Oration  falsely 
ascribed  to  Lysias,  and  another  equally  falsely  ascribed  tc 
Demosthenes.  But  up  to  the  time  of  Mr.  Stobart's  purchase 
there  was  no  funeral  oration  known  which  had  really  been 
delivered  at  Athens  over  the  dead ;  for  the  orations  ascribed  to 
Lysias  and  Demosthenes  are  mere  exercises,  and  Gorgias'  speech, 
of  which  we  have  a  fragment,  could  not  have  been  delivered  in 
any  official  capacity  by  him,  as  he  was  not  an  Athenian.  The 
appointment  of  an  orator  to  discharge  this  function  was  a  matter 
of  serious  deliberation  on  the  part  of  the  senate,  and  a  mark  of 
great  popularity  on  the  part  of  the  orator  chosen.  The  appoint- 
ment of  Hyperides,  therefore,  in  b.c.  322,  to  deliver  this  oration 
marks  the  position  of  importance  which  he  occupied  during  the 
Lamian  war,  of  which  he  had  been  in  large  measure  the  pro- 
moter, and  in  which  the  dead  over  whom  he  was  to  speak  had 
fallen. 

The  orator  on  these  occasions  was  allowed  little  latitude  in 
the  choice  of  his  subjects  or  in  the  form  of  his  speech.  It  was 
ordained  by  custom  that  the  orator,  after  a  few  opening  words, 
the  proem,  should  dwell  upon  the  glorious  history  of  Athens, 
then  praise  the  dead  warriors,  then  speak  some  words  of  advice 
and  consolation  to  their  relatives,  and  end  by  bidding  his  hearers 
raise  the  funeral  cry.^  As  the  orator  was  limited  to  these 
topics,  and  the  speeches  were  made  during  a  century  and  a  half, 
the  funeral  oration  is  a  marked  example  of  the  difference  which 
we  and  the  Athenians  make  in  the  value  set  upon  the  treatment 
of  a  subject.  With  the  Athenians  the  treatment  was  every- 
thing. With  us  the  subject-matl3r  is  everything.  The  same 
difference  is  to  be  observed  with  regard  to  the  drama.  At 
Athens  mythological  subjects,  perfectly  well  known  to  all  the 
audience,  supplied  the  plot — which,  consequently,  had  no  sur- 
prise in  store  for  the  spectators — and  also  supplied  the  figures^ 
which,  as  a  rule,  preserved  the  characters  conventionally  as- 
signed to  them.  The  Athenians,  therefore,  were  alive  to  the 
finest  variations  in  the  details  of  the  treatment  which  a  myth 
or  a  character  received   at   the   hands  of  various    dramatists. 

*  (Dem.)  Epitaphios  37  :  v/tets  S^  dTrodvpa/mevoL  Kal  tA  irpoaiiKovTa  ws  XP^ 
KoX  vhiiifxa  iroir)<Tavr€^  dirire.  (Lys. )  Epitaphios  81  :  Oepave^ovTai  t6» 
Tarpiov  vliixov  6Xo<pvp€(j6ai  roiis  6aTTOfxivov$. 


44<5  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

Moreover,  their  familiarity  with  the  myth,  and  their  opportuni- 
ties of  comparing  the  different  modes  of  working  on  the  same 
myth,  must  have  given  them,  as  critics,  almost  the  same  advan- 
tage as  a  man  would  have  who  had  tried  himself  to  write  a 
play.  This  familiarity  with  the  dramatist's  materials  had  the 
further  result  of  making  it  indispensable  at  Athens  that  a  play 
should  be  written  in  verse  and  not  in  prose.  The  modern  ten- 
dency, on  the  other  hand,  is  to  judge  a  play  by  the  plot,  pay 
little  attention  to  treatment,  and  write  in  prose ;  so  that  in  no 
remote  future  we  may  wonder  as  much  at  the  Athenian  custom 
of  writing  plays  in  verse  as  we  now  do  at  their  having  covered 
their  marble  buildings  and  statuary  with  paint. 

A  funeral  oration  could  not  indeed  be  written  in  "verse,  but  it 
essentially  belonged  to  that  class  of  orations — the  epideictic — 
which  Isocrates  says  have  the  same  functions  to  discharge  and 
aim  at  the  same  effect  as  poetry  or  music.  The  topics  of  a 
funeral  oration,  like  the  plot  of  a  play,  were  fully  known  to  the 
audience  beforehand.  The  Athenians  listened,  not  in  order  to 
satisfy  the  cravings  of  a  restless  intellect,  but  to  gratify  their 
artistic  instincts. 

In  the  treatise  "  On  the  Sublime,"  Hyperides'  Funeral  Oration 
is  ranked  as  the  highest  effort  of  panegyric  oratory,  and  we  may 
accept  this  judgment.  Finally,  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that 
in  one  important  and  significant  respect  Hyperides  transgTesses 
the  lines  laid  down  by  custom  for  the  orator  on  these  occasions 
to  follow.  It  was  inconsistent  with  the  practice  of  democratic 
Athens  that  any  of  the  dead  should  be  mentioned  by  name  :  in 
Athens  equality  did  not  end,  as  neither  did  it  begin,  at  the 
grave.  The  violation  of  this  equality  and  the  decline  of  the 
democracy  are  signalised  by  Hyperides'  trangression  of  this 
practice  in  the  last  funeral  oration  deli7ered  while  Athens  was 
free. 

Lycurgus,  the  next  orator  of  the  patriotic  party  whom  we 
have  to  consider,  we  have  already  incidentally  mentioned  as 
taking  the  opposite  side  to  Hyperides  in  the  cases  of  Euxenippus 
and  Lycophron.  As  an  orator  he  was  distinctly  inferior  to 
Hyperides.  He  had  no  natural  gift  for  oratory,  but  worked  at 
the  subject  with  great  determination  and  perseverance.  His 
education  under  Isocrates,  moreover,  was  not  the  most  suitable 
for  his  object,  as  Isocrates  is  purely  an  epideictic  orator,  while 
Lycurgus  needed  oratory  only  for  practical  purposes.  Even 
thus,  with  the  education  he  had  received  and  the  hard  work  he 
bestowed  upon  the  art  of  speaking,  he  seems  only  to  have 
spoken  when  circumstances  compelled  him  :  for,  as  far  as  out 


ORATORY:    CONTEMPORARIES  OF  DEMOSTHENES.        447 

knowledge  goes,  all  his  speeches  date  from  between  the  battle 
of  Chseronea  and  his  death  in  B.C.  322.  In  other  respects  than 
his  oratory  he  was  a  complete  contrast  to  Hyperides.  Born 
about  B.C.  390,  some  few  years  before  Hyperides  and  Demos- 
thenes, Lycurgus  was  the  only  politician  of  good  family  among 
the  orators  of  his  day ;  and  the  character  of  the  man  through- 
out his  life  showed  the  effect  of  the  family  traditions  under 
which  he  was  born  and  educated.  As  was  usual  in  a  man  of 
aristocratic  extraction,  he  had  a  certain  leaning  to  Sparta  and 
to  the  Spartan  mode  of  life,  politics,  and  thought.  The  quota- 
tions he  makes  from  the  poets  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that  his 
family  clung  to  the  traditional  mode  of  education  ;  while  his 
religious  views  remained  unaffected  by  the  growing  tendency  to 
sceptical  investigation.  Although  a  true  patriot  and  a  loyal 
son  of  democratic  Athens,  he  always  preserved  the  attitude  of 
superiority  to  the  ordinary  citizen  which  came  naturally  to  a 
man  of  good  descent  and  old-fashioned  severity  of  life.  He 
was  accordingly  respected  by  the  Athenians  to  an  extent  almost 
indistinguishable  from  fear,  and  whatever  Lycurgus  said  the 
Athenians  accepted  as  true.  The  service  which  he  rendered  to 
his  country,  beyond  that  of  the  example  of  his  life,  lay  in  his 
finance.  His  powers  in  this  respect  were  quite  unequalled  in 
the  history  of  Greece,  and  Boeckh  ^  calls  him  almost  the  only 
real  financier  that  antiquity  produced.  In  the  history  of  litera- 
ture, also,  Lycurgus  deserves  an  honourable  name,  for  it  was  on 
his  proposal  that  an  authorised  text  of  the  works  of  ^schylus, 
Sophocles,  and  Euripides  was  drawn  up  and  deposited  in  the 
state  archives,  so  that  the  alterations,  interpolations,  and  "  gags  " 
introduced  by  the  actors  might  henceforth  be  rendered  impossible. 

Of  the  fifteen  speeches  which  we  hear  of  as  having  been  de- 
livered by  Lycurgus.  only  one,  that  against  Leocrates,  has  come 
down  to  us.  In  addition  to  it,  however,  we  have  some  of  his 
decrees  and  laws,  which  inscriptions  have  preserved  for  us.> 
His  vocabulary  and  his  metaphors  are  poetical  to  an  extent  wliich 
would  have  been  more  intelligible  in  the  immaturity  of  Attic 
oratory  than  it  is  at  its  close.  At  the  same  time,  Lycurgus  was 
a  diligent  pupil  of  Isocrates,  and  the  influence  of  his  master  ia 
visible  in  the  epideictic  character  of  his  speecL  For  practical 
purposes  both  these  tendencies  were  ill  adapted  ;  they  have, 
however,  a  harmony  with  the  character  of  Lycurgus.  Much 
speaking  he  seems  not  to  have  done  ;  but  when  he  did  speak,  it 
was  to  be  impressive  and  solemn,  and  in  tliis  he  was  aided  by 
both  his  unusual  vocabulary  and  his  epideictic  manner.      His 

1  S.  L  569.  ^  C.  I.  A.  ii.  162  (163),  i68,  173,  176,  180,  180b,  202. 


448  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

oratory  is  thus  distinct  in  quality  both  from  the  teclinical 
power  of  Demosthenes  and  the  easy  authority  of  Hyperidea. 
His  hard  work,  not  being  supplemented  by  any  great  natural 
capacity  for  oratory,  betrays  itself  in  the  monotony  which  makes 
the  speech  against  Leocrates  somewhat  tedious. 

Hegesippus,  who  belonged  to  the  extreme  section  of  the  patri- 
otic party,  was  probably  a  little  older  than  Demosthenes,  and 
died  about  B.C.  324.  The  most  important  fact  that  we  know 
with  regard  to  his  life  is  that  he  was  at  the  head  of  an  embassy 
sent  in  B.c.  343  from  Athens  to  Philip  to  negotiate  about  the 
restoration  of  the  island  of  Halonnesus  and  other  matters. 
Philip  rejected  the  terms  of  the  Athenians,  but  in  the  following 
year  sent  an  embassy  and  a  letter,  offering,  among  other  things, 
to  present  the  island  to  Athens.  During  the  debate  on  this 
offer  was  delivered  the  speech  on  the  Halormesus,  which  is  in- 
cluded among  Demosthenes'  works,  but  is  really  the  composition 
of  Hegesippus. 

The  political  tone  and  sentiments  of  the  speech  are  exactly  in 
the  vein  of  Demosthenes.  The  distinction  between  "  giving  " 
and  "  giving  back  "  the  island  is  expressly  ascribed  to  Demos- 
thenes by  yEschines  ;  ^  and,  lastly,  Demosthenes  did  deliver  a 
speech  on  this  occasion  on  this  subject.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
the  political  tone  is  that  of  Demosthenes,  the  literary  style  is 
certainly  not.  In  the  periods  of  Demosthenes  the  colon  which 
gives  the  keynote  to  the  sentence  is  reserved  to  the  end.  Aa 
thus  the  dependent  thoughts  come  first,  and  the  Aveight  of  the 
sentence  is  thrown  forward,  the  hearer's  attention  is  kept  on 
the  alert  to  the  end,  and  consequently  highly  complex  sen- 
tences are  possible,  which  resemble  an  organism,  in  that  the 
parts  are  not  separable  and  independent,  but  are  conditioned  by, 
and  only  have  a  meaning  in  connection  with,  the  whole.  This 
rhetorical  structure  of  the  period  is  not  presented  by  the  speech 
on  the  Halonnesus,  which  in  the  structure  of  its  sentences  is 
neither  rhetorical  nor  epideictic,  but  rather  resembles  Hyperides 
in  the  somewhat  chance  sequence  of  its  cola,  although  the  easy 
flow  of  Hyperides'  sentences  is  missing.  Moreover,  not  only  is 
there  no  attempt  in  the  speech  to  limit  the  occurrence  of  hiatus 
in  accordance  with  the  rules  observed  by  Demosthenes,  but  there 
is  no  attempt  to  avoid  hiatus  at  all,^  As  to  the  distinction  be- 
tween "  giving  "  and  "  giving  back  "  the  island,  this  was  doubt- 

'■  3»  S3  :  'AXdwrjaof  ioloov'  6  5'  dirTjySpeve  fir]  \afi^6,v€iv,  el  diSucriv,  d\X(^ 
fi^  cLTTodLdoiifft,  irepl  avWapQi'  oia<pep6/j,a'0i. 

*  The  expression  with  which  the  speecli  concludes  has  been  taken  to  be  too 
•oarie  for  Demosthenes,  but  such  an  argument  is  worthless. 


oratory:    contemporaries  of  DEMOSTHENES.       449 

less  a  party  cry,  and  used  by  every  orator  who  got  up  to  speak 
on  that  side  :  and  against  this  argument  for  ascribing  the  speech 
to  Demosthenes  we  may  fairly  set  a  passage  ^  which  probably 
implies  that  the  speaker  Avas  a  member  of  the  embassy  sent  to 
Philip,  as  indeed  Hegesippus  was,  although  Demosthenes  was 
not.  Finally,  the  fact  that  Demostlienes  delivered  a  speech  on 
this  occasion,  and  on  this  subject,  is  probably  the  reason  why, 
in  the  absence  of  Demosthenes'  speech,  the  speech  of  Hegesippus, 
whose  oratory  shows  the  influence  of  Demosthenes,  came  to  be 
inserted  among  the  great  orator's  speeches. 

The  speech  on  the  Treaty  with  Alexander  ^  which  is  usually 
published  among  the  works  of  Demostlienes,  is  not  by  Demos- 
thenes, but  by  some  contemporary  speaker  of  the  anti-Macedonian 
party.  The  date  of  the  speech  is  about  B.C.  335,  and  its  object 
is  to  rouse  the  Athenians  to  shake  off  Alexander's  yoke,  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  broken  the  treaty  which  constituted  him 
protector  of  the  Greeks.  The  speech  is  in  places  illogical  and 
obscure.  There  is  little  fire  about  it ;  the  language  is  not  always 
pure  Attic,  and  there  seem  to  be  no  grounds  for  attributing 
the  speech,  as  has  been  done,  either  to  Hegesippus  or  Hyperides. 

Polyeuctus  of  Sphettus  is  spoken  of  highly  by  Demosthenes, 
to  whose  section  of  the  anti-Macedonian  party  he  seems  to  have 
belonged,  for  we  find  that  in  the  Harpalus  afi'air,  he,  unlike 
Hyperides,  took  the  side  of  Demosthenes.  None  of  his  speeches 
have  come  down  to  our  time,  but  we  know  that  he  supported 
Lycurgus  in  accusing  Cephisodotus  of  illegality,  in  that  he  pro- 
posed to  erect  in  the  market-place  a  statue  of  Demades,  who  by 
means  of  his  relations  with  Macedonia  had  been  able  to  save 
Athens  from  being  destroyed  by  Alexander.  A  fragment  of 
this  speech  has  been  preserved,^  which  shows  that  he  had  some 
of  the  quiet  power  of  Hyperides.  He  inquires  what  sort  of  a 
statue  they  were  to  put  up  to  Demades  :  they  could  not  have 
him  represented  with  a  shield,  for  he  threw  it  away  at  Chaeronea  : 
if  he  was  represented  resting  on  the  gunwale  of  a  ship,  the 
question  would  be  suggested,  when  did  he  or  his  father  give  a 
ship  to  the  state  :  "then  with  a  scroll  in  his  hand.?  containing 
the  indictments  and  impeachments  he  has  gone  through '? "  and 
60  on. 

^  (Xeyev  di  Kal  irphi  rifiSis  roto^jrovs  X67oi;y,  Sre  wpbs  avrbv  eirpf.a^e'uaa.iiew. 


irepl  rCiv  trpb%  'AX^^avSpov  crvvdrjKwv. 

In  Apsines,  Spengel  Eheiores  Grraeci,  i.  387. 


9  F 


450  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

iESCHINES   AND   THE   ORATORS   OF   THE   MACEDONIAN   PARTT. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  life  of  ^schines  is  drawn  in  the  main 
directly  or  indirectly  from  the  speeches  of  Demosthenes  and  cf 
^schines  himself.  The  sketch  drawn  by  Demosthenes^  is  the 
one  best  known,  but  it  is  merely  a  caricature — drawn  in  the 
style  and  with  the  recklessness  of  Aristophanes — which  in  those 
particulars  that  we  have  not  facts  to  contradict,  must  be  regarded 
as  probably  either  untrue  or  only  having  the  very  slenderest  sub- 
stratum of  fact.  According  to  Demosthenes  the  parents  of 
^schines  were  both  of  them  slaves  by  birth.  His  father, 
Tromes,  became  an  Athenian  citizen,  and  having  risen  in  life, 
added  a  couple  of  syllables  to  his  name — a  practice  not  unknown 
in  English  society — and  became  Atrometus.  His  mother,  Glau- 
cothea,  nicknamed  Empusa,  was  a  hetaera  of  the  commonest  kind, 
who  imitated  the  greater  members  of  her  profession,  such  as 
Phryne,  and  initiated  people  into  a  mystery-worship  of  her  own 
invention.  The  son,  ^schines,  combined  the  duties  of  menial 
attendant  in  the  school  which  his  father  held,  with  those  of 
chest-bearer,  fan-bearer,  &c.,  in  the  rites  of  his  mother.  Such 
is  the  story  of  Demosthenes.  "WTiether  the  father  was  or  was 
not  a  slave  by  birth  we  have  no  evidence  :  the  utmost  that  can 
be  shown  is  that  Demosthenes'  account  is  possible.  There  is  no 
reason  for  regarding  it  as  probable.'^  Still  less  probable  is  the 
change  of  name  on  the  part  of  the  father.  The  mother  was  of 
respectable  origin,  daughter  of  Glaucus  of  Acharnae,  and  sister 
of  Cleobulus  the  general.  By  the  poverty,  which  at  the  end  of 
the  Peloponnesian  war  fell  on  many  Athenians,  she  may  have 
been  compelled  to  conduct  mysteries,  and  this  is  probably  the 
only  ground  for  aspersions  on  her  mode  of  life.  "With  regard 
generally  to  what  Demosthenes  makes  out  in  the  speech  on  the 
Crown,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  he  is  there  raking  up  what  had 
happened — or  rather  not  happened — some  fifty  years  before  : 
that  in  his  earlier  speech  on  the  Embassy,  he  seems  to  have 
known  nothing  of  all  this,  and  that  the  basis  of  it  all  is  pro- 
bably to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  position  in  life  which 
iEschines  and  his  two  brothers  earned  for  themselves  was  much 
higher  than  that  which  they  started  from. 

J  De  Cor.  129  et  seqq.,  and  258  et  seqq. 

-  iEschines  himself  (De  mala  gesta  legatione,  147)  says  his  father  was  * 
eitizen,  and  of  the  deme  Cothucidie. 


oratory:  -asscHiNES.  451 

iEschiiMis  was  born  about  b.c.  390,  six  years  before  Demos- 
thenes. Rhetorical  or  philosophical  education  he  does  not  seem 
to  have  received  ;  but  his  fondness  for  talking  about  education 
seems  to  show  that  he  at  least  was  not  ashamed  of  having  been 
taught  by  his  father  the  schoolmaster.  At  the  age  of  eigliteen 
he  entered  on  tlie  military  service  usually  imposed  on  Atheniin 
citizens,  and  bore  himself  with  courage  and  distinction, ^  especially 
at  Tamynae.  He  then  became  clerk  in  some  government  office, 
a  profession  which,  as  it  was  paid,  was  looked  down  upon  by 
Athenians  of  good  position.  With  a  versatility,  however,  which 
testifies  both  to  the  energy  and  to  the  natural  abilities  of  the 
man,  he  then  took  to  the  stage.  In  point  of  social  status  this 
was  no  advance  on  his  previous  position,  especially  as  he  did  not 
rise  to  the  higher  ranks  of  his  profession.  Some  merit,  how- 
ever, he  must  have  had,  else  so  good  a  judge  as  Theodorus  would 
never  have  chosen  him  as  his  tritagonist.^  His  quitting  this 
profession  was  due  to  an  accident  which  is  interesting  as  illumi- 
nating the  limits  imposed  on  stage  action  by  the  costume  of 
tragedy.  In  the  character  of  Oenomaus  (in  the  play  of  that 
name  by  Sophocles),  ^schines  had  to  give  chase  to  Pelops. 
The  buskins,  the  bolsters,  the  mask  and  the  topknot,  the  padding 
and  gloves,  however,  in  which  he  was  arrayed  were  not  adapted 
for  such  active  exercise,  -^schines  fell,  and  had  to  be  igno- 
miniously  set  up  again  by  the  leader  of  the  chorus.  He  returned 
to  his  earlier  profession  of  clerk,  and  this  time  attached  himself 
to  two  distinguished  statesmen,  Aristophon  and  Eubulus,  by 
whose  assistance  he  might  hope  to  gain  political  distinction. 

^schines'  experience  in  life  up  to  this  point  had  been  varied, 
and  had  given  him  various  qualifications  for  superficial  success 
as  a  politician.  As  an  actor  he  learnt  to  manage  his  voice, 
which  was  fine,  to  declaim,  and  to  pose.  He  also  acquired  a 
more  than  usually  accurate  acquaintance  with  the  dramatists, 
and  this  was  a  large  portion  of  Athenian  education.  "With  the 
routine  of  official  life,  his  experience  as  clerk  had  made  him 
familiar,  and  his  command  of  the  technicalities  of  the  phraseology 
of  laws  and  decrees  would  give  him  the  air  of  a  politician  with 
a  knowledge  of  the  constitution.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had 
had  no  systematic  education  in  philosophy  or  rhetoric,  as  De- 
mosthenes or  Hyperides  had  had,  nor  did  he  inherit  any  family 
traditions  such  as,  in  the  case  of  Lycurgus,  introduce  men  to 
statesmanship.     Accordingly,  ^schines  never  became  more  than 

^  This  is  an  offence  which  Demosthenes  could  never  forgive  him  (De  Cor. 
326). 
^  Dem,  ziz.  246. 


452  HISTOKY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

a  second-rate  politician.  He  did  not  speak  with  much  regularity 
in  the  Assembly,  and  the  embassies  on  which  he  was  sent 
were  not  of  the  first  importance,  as  the  one  in  B.C.  348  to  the 
Peloponnese ;  or  if,  as  in  the  case  of  those  to  Philip  in  346,  or 
after  Chaeronea  in  338,  they  were  of  importance,  the  part 
assigned  to  him  was  subordinate.  It  is  to  his  collisions  with 
Demosthenes  on  the  subject  of  the  embassy  to  Philip,  of  which 
they  were  both  members,  that  ^schines  owes  in  great  part  the 
celebrity  which  attaches  to  his  name.  Once  more  iEschines 
ventured  to  attack  Demosthenes,  in  the  matter  of  the  crown, 
and  this  brought  about  his  own  extinction ;  for,  having  failed 
to  obtain  one-fifth  of  the  votes  in  this  trial,  he,  rather  than  pay 
the  fine  and  submit  to  the  disgrace  consequent  on  his  failure, 
left  Athens  and  never  returned.  Whither  he  went  and  how  he 
died  are  matters  of  uncertainty.  He  is  said  to  have  gone  to 
Rhodes,  and  to  have  set  up  a  school  of  rhetoric  there. 

./Eschines  seems  to  have  committed  but  few  of  his  speeches 
to  writing,  and  only  three  of  those  have  come  down  to  us,  that 
against  Timarchus,  that  on  the  Embassy,  and  the  one  against 
Ctesiphon,  These  three  speeches  were  published  by  .^schines 
to  justify  his  personal  and  political  character.  Other  motives 
for  publication  he  had  none,  as  he  was  neither  a  logograpber,  to 
wish  to  advertise  himself,  nor  a  great  statesman,  to  wish  to 
publish  his  policy  as  widely  as  possible,  nor  a  teacher  of  style. 

As  in  the  history  of  Attic  oratory  we  have  in  Hyperides  a 
reversion  to  the  type  of  oratory  displayed  by  Lysias,  so  in 
jEschines  we  have  a  reversion  to  the  type  of  Andocides.  Be- 
tween ^schines  and  Andocides,  however,  there  are  great  differ- 
ences, ^schines  had  a  natural  talent,  which  Andocides  did 
not  possess  ;  was  swayed  by  better  oratorical  traditions,  and 
had  before  him  better  models  in  oratory  than  was  the  case 
with  Andocides,  Neither  ^Eschines  nor  Andocides  spoke  regu- 
larly in  public  ;  neither  was  a  logograpber,  and  neither  had 
received  a  technical  education  in  oratory.  Making  allowance 
for  the  difference  in  talent  and  in  time  between  the  two 
orators,  the  results  of  this  want  of  practice  and  education  on 
each  are  the  same.  To  bring  this  out  in  detail  we  shall  have 
to  compare  with  ^schines  Demosthenes,  the  practised  and 
educated  orator.  The  comparison  is  the  more  necessary  as 
iEschines  undoubtedly  ranks  next  to  Demosthenes  as  an  orator, 
and  it  is  important  to  see  why  and  how  these  orators  differ. 

The  highest  excellence  of  .^schines  lies  in  his  powsr  of 
expression.  The  first  quality  demanded  of  an  orator  is  that  he 
should  express  himself  clearly,  and  a  certain  amount  of  educa- 


ORATORY:    ^SCHINES.  453 

tion  and  practice  will  enable  a  man  to  be  intelligible  when  he 
especially  strives  to  be  so.  But  to  be  always  clear  and  intel- 
ligible demands  further  education  and  practice.  The  habit  ol 
clear  expression  must  be  exercised  until  it  becomes  a  second 
nature  ;  and  it  is  just  this  further  education  and  practice  which 
Demosthenes  had  and  ^^schines  had  not.  ^schines  is  intel- 
ligible when  he  has  a  particular  motive  to  be  so,  but  is  not 
clear  always.  The  same  defect  also  betrays  itself  in  his  awk- 
ward repetition  of  words.  Clearness  of  expression,  however,  is 
not  the  only  quality  demanded  of  an  orator  :  his  expressions 
must  also  be  felicitous.  For  this  end  a  man  must  obviously 
have  a  wide  range  of  Avords  at  his  command,  in  order  to  fit 
each  thought  with  the  words  which  will  appropriately  and 
happily  express  it.  Like  Demosthenes,  .^Eschines  possesses  this 
necessary  command  of  language,  and  it  is  his  highest  and  a 
very  high  excellence.  So  far  as  the  two  orators  ditfer — to  the 
prejudice  of  -5^schines — the  difference  mainly  consists  in  the 
way  in  which  they  employ  their  resources.  An  expression  may 
be  excellently  calculated  to  convey  a  given  thought,  and  yet 
from  want  of  dignity,  from  the  association  of  ideas,  or  from 
some  other  reason,  be  in  a  given  case  not  appropriate.  In  other 
words,  an  Attic  orator  had  to  limit  the  brilliance  or  grandeur  of 
his  language  by  considerations  of  correctness  and  of  purity  of 
style.  The  perfect  exercise  of  these  limitations  is  always  the 
result  of  special  education  and  of  practice,  reinforced  by  natural 
taste.  To  illustrate  the  superiority  of  Demosthenes  in  this 
respect  the  grander  passages  of  the  two  orators  should  be  com- 
pared. For  the  expression  of  lofty  sentiments  lofty  words  are 
required,  for  the  style  should  rise  and  fall  with  the  subject. 
In  exalted  passages,  therefore,  the  tendency  of  an  Attic  orator 
was  to  rise  from  the  tone  of  ordinary  life  towards  the  tone  of 
tragedy.  In  an  early  stage  of  oratory  this  was  done  by  Ando- 
cides  by  the  introduction  of  phrases  almost  immediately  from 
tragedy,  and  the  result  is  that  between  the  passages  thus  in- 
troduced and  the  rest  of  the  speech  there  is  a  difference  of 
quality  so  great  that  the  purity  of  Andocides'  style  is  consider- 
ably marred.  -5^schines,  like  Andocides,  lacked  the  rhetorical 
education  necessary  to  prevent  him  from  making  this  mistake, 
but  by  the  time  of  ^Eschines  the  critical  faculty  was  improved 
so  much  that  ^schines  could  not  sin  in  this  respect  to  the 
same  extent  as  Andocides,  and  in  ^schines,  although  we  have 
words  which  distinctly  belong  to  the  tragedians,  we  no  longer 
have  whole  phrases  lugged  in.  Demosthenes,  on  the  other 
hand,  does  not  imbed  either  such  words  or  such  phrases  in  his 


454  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

oratory.  He  takes  his  tone  and  not  his  words  from  tragedy, 
"What  he  borrows  from  the  tragedians  he  gives  out  again  in 
a  shape  which  is  all  his  own,  and  consequently  does  not  jal 
with  the  rest  of  the  passage. 

We  have  seen  in  the  chapter  on  Demosthenes  that  one  source 
of  his  strength  is  his  complete  command  of  all  the  figures  of 
speech  and  of  thought,  and  that  in  this  respect  he  far  outstrips 
any  previous  orator.  In  this  he  has  a  close  rival  in  iEschines, 
whose  wide  range  of  language  is  also  supplemented  by  a  wide 
and  varied  command  of  figures.  Here,  also,  such  superiority  as 
Demosthenes  may  possess  is  due  to  his  greater  experience  in 
oratory.  The  result  of  this  experience  is  that  Demosthenes  has 
command  of  language ;  on  the  other  hand,  ^schines'  words  are 
apt  to  run  away  with  him,  as  was  also  the  case  with  the  less 
experienced  Andocides.  This  is  in  part  due  to  the  copious 
vocabulary  and  facile  flow  of  language  which  in  other  respects 
constitutes  the  strength  of  .^schines.  He  finds  it  so  easy  to 
talk  that  he  is  apt  to  degenerate  into  mere  talk.  Assonances  of 
words,  or  of  the  ends  of  words,  are  sometimes  sought  solely  for 
their  own  sake,  not  for  the  sake  of  giving  force  and  weight  to 
his  words  ;  and  this  is  the  abuse  of  figures  of  speech.  The  expe- 
rience of  Demosthenes  and  his  sense  of  limit  enabled  him  to  exer- 
cise due  restraint  in  the  use  of  figures  of  all  kinds,  but  ^Eschines 
weakens  their  effect  by  using  them  to  excess.^  Not  only  does 
this  want  of  restraint  sometimes  weaken  the  effect  of  ^schines' 
words  and  figures,  it  sometimes  also  betrays  him  into  sentences 
of  extreme  clumsiness.  The  sentences  of  Isocrates  are  long,  but 
they  are  always  constructed  with  such  perfect  regularity  that 
they  are  quite  transparent.  Demosthenes  has  sentences  of  great 
length,  but  there  is  always  so  much  obvious  design  in  them, 
and  they  are  penetrated  by  such  unity  of  thought,  that  their 
length  is  not  felt.  Hyperides  wanders  through  long  sentences 
apparently  of  the  most  casual  structure,  or  want  of  structure, 
but  his  native  grace  and  his  concealed  power  always  enable  him 
to  bring  his  sentences  to  a  happy  and  effective  close,  ^schines, 
on  the  other  hand,  when  oft'  his  guard,  drifts  into  a  sentence  of 

^  An  example  of  eflfective  use  of  the  figure  antistrophe,  i.e.  the  repetition 
of  a  word  at  the  end  of  successive  clauses,  is  the  famous  passage  in  Ctes.  202, 
fn;6'  (v  dpeTrj  Tovd'  vfiQv  fxrjSeh  KaraXoyi^^adai,  6s  hv  eiravepo/x^vov  KTrjcn- 
ipGivToz,  €1  KaX^ffji  ArnuLOffd^vTiv,  TrpcDros  ava^o-qar}  "  KCiKet.  /cdXet."  iyri  aavrbp 
KoKih,  iirl  Tovs  v6fj.ovi  KuXeis.  (iri  ttjv  drj/uLOKparidv  KaXeTs.  But  the  effect  of 
this  passage  is  weakened  by  the  use  of  the  same  fij;ure  shortly  before,  198, 
ficTTij  fj.iv  ovv  iv  Trj  TipLTjffft.  TTjv  \pi;(t>ov  aiTec,  t}]v  dpyrjv  tt)v  vp-tripav  irapairelTM 
iffTis  d'iv  T(^  TTpdoTifi  \6yij}  Trjv  \f'rj<pov  aire?,  vdfiov  airei,  Siv  oihf  alTTJcrcu 
ovdiv  6aiov  oiiSevl  oSt'  ahriOivra.  iript^  5ovvai. 


ORATORY  :    .ESCHINES.  455 

whic.h  "you  see  no  reason  in  its  structure  why  it  should  over 
come  to  an  end,  and  you  accept  the  conclusion  as  an  arrange- 
ment of  Providence  rather  than  of  the  author." 

There  are  three  ends  at  which,  roughly  speaking,  we  may  say  an 
orator  has  to  aim  :  to  express  himself  clearly  and  felicitously  ;  to 
convince  his  hearers  ;  and  to  inspire  them  with  his  own  feelings. 
With  regard  to  the  first  of  these  we  have  now  seen  that  so  good 
are  the  natural  gifts  of  vEschines  that  it  is  only  because  of 
Demosthenes'  superior  experience  and  practice  as  a  public  speaker 
and  a  logographer  that  he  just  manages  to  outstrip  him.  When, 
however,  we  come  to  the  second  of  the  three  objects  an  orator 
has  to  aim  at,  we  find  the  difference  between  the  two  orators  is 
great.  In  dealing  with  Andocides  we  saw  that  his  lack  of 
experience  in  arguing  cases  made  him  vastly  inferior  in  argu- 
ment when  compared  with  Antiphon.  The  same  difference  ia 
visible  between  Machines  and  Demosthenes,  and  is  made  still 
greater  by  the  superior  intellectual  power  of  Demosthenes.  In 
the  arrangement  of  his  subject-matter,  indeed,  ^schines  is  clever 
enough.  This,  however,  is  a  power  easily  acquired  by  imitation, 
and  in  it  we  may  clearly  see  the  advance  which  the  general 
level  of  oratory  made  between  the  time  of  Andocides  and  of 
^schines.  The  powers  of  ^Eschines  seem  to  have  been  reten- 
tive rather  than  original.  His  speeches  contain  a  large  amount 
of  information — usually  inaccurate — but  like  his  loans  from 
tragedy  it  has  not  been  assimilated.  His  want  of  mental  power 
is  seen  again  when  he  undertakes  to  expound  the  law.  He 
expends  many  words  on  explaining  the  laws  he  quotes,  and  ends 
by  not  explaining  them.  His  arguments,  moreover,  are  not 
unfrequently  illogical,  and  he  gladly  takes  refuge,  for  instance, 
in  misty  declamations  based  on  popular  superstition  ^  rather 
than  submit  his  argument  to  the  light  of  logical  criticism. 
Above  all,  however,  if  an  orator  fails  to  convey  to  the  minds  of 
his  audience  his  own  view  of  the  case,  it  is  mainly  because  he 
is  himself  not  clear  in  his  view.  This  is  the  reason  why  his 
great  attack  upon  Demosthenes  in  the  matter  of  the  crown  fails. 
To  attack  the  policy  of  Demosthenes  successfully  it  was  neces- 
sary to  state  an  alternative  line  of  action.  If  the  policy  of 
opposing  Macedonia  was  wrong,  then  there  must  have  been  some 
other  policy  which  was  right,  and  that  policy  it  was  .^schines' 
business  to  propound.  But  ^schines  has  no  such  alternative 
line  of  action  to  propose.  If,  instead  of  employing  an  argument, 
he  imputes  a  motive — and  bribery,  bribery,  bribery  is,  signifi- 

^  In  Ctes.  106-158  (the  diatribe  against  the  ill-luck  and  impiety  of  DemoK 
thenes). 


456  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURB 

cantly  enough,  the  only  motive  which  ..-Eschines  can  imagine-— 
it  is  because  he  has  no  argunaent.  Not  only,  however,  is  he 
destitute  of  any  constructive  idea,  but  his  criticism  is  weak. 
He  can  only  say  that  Demosthenes'  policy  failed.  And  of  ill 
criticisms  the  cheapest  and  the  most  worthless  is  criticism  by 
results. 

It  is  not,  however,  an  orator's  business  to  merely  demonstrate 
a  theorem.  He  has  also  to  command  the  feelings  of  his  audi- 
ence. Now  there  are  certain  sentiments  to  which  -^schines 
frequently,  and  Demosthenes  rarely  appeals.  They  are  the 
sentiments  which  cluster  round  the  family  hearth,  the  worship 
of  the  gods,  and  the  history  of  the  past.  Again,  Demosthenes 
is  not,  strictly  speaking,  pathetic.  Some  of  his  speeches  do 
indeed  appear  to  us  pathetic,  but  that  is  not  because  they  were 
designed  for  pathos,  but  because  we  know  and  read  them  in 
the  light  of  the  subsequent  history  of  Greece,  ^schines,  on 
the  other  hand,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  peroration  of  the  speech 
on  the  Embassy,  aims  at  pathos.  And  in  the  peroration  of  the 
speech  against  Ctesiphon,  .^Eschines  challenges  comparison  with 
33emosthenes,  even  in  the  power  of  raising  patriotic  indignation. 
In  fine,  ^schines  works  on  a  larger  number  of  more  varied 
emotions  than  Demosthenes,  and  yet,  by  general  consent, 
.^schines  is  less  effective  than  Demosthenes.  Undoubtedly 
the  earnestness  of  Demosthenes  is  intense  to  a  greater  degree 
than  is  that  of  ^schines  or  any  other  orator,  and,  consequently, 
he  works  on  our  feelings  more  powerfully  than  ^Eschines.  But 
it  is  also  true  that  the  superiority  of  Demosthenes  has  been 
exalted  at  the  expense  of  .^schines  by  means  of  extraneous 
considerations.  In  the  case  of  the  speeches  on  the  Crown  this 
is  clear.  Public  opinion  was  on  the  side  of  Demosthenes,  and 
Demosthenes  had  the  better  cause.  Demosthenes  has  our  sym- 
pathies before  we  open  iEschines.  But  this,  which  is  itself  an 
explanation  partly  why  ^schines  takes  less  hold  of  our  feel- 
ings, may  be  pushed  too  far,  and  the  unfair  inference  be  drawn 
that,  because  .Machines  failed  to  prove  Demosthenes  a  traitor, 
therefore  .^schines  was  a  traitor  himself.  Hence  it  is  said  that 
./Eschines  fails  to  make  us  believe  in  him,  because  he  did  not 
believe  in  himself,  and  that  his  oratory  is  pervaded  with  the 
taint  of  insincerity.  He  poses  as  a  religious  citizen  and  admir- 
able father  of  a  family  for  the  sake  of  respectability.  He 
assumes  patriotism  though  he  has  it  not,  and  he  trades  on 
pathetic  passages  because  he  was  an  actor  by  training  and  by 
nature  theatrical. 

The  truth,  however,  seems  to  be  that  j^schines  was  in  morals 


oratory:  ^schines.  457 

as  in  intellect  not  above  the  average  level  of  his  ivmo,  whereas 
Demosthenes  was  distinctly  above  it.  ^schines  is  accused  by 
Demosthenes  of  having  rendered  no  services  to  the  state ;  and 
Demosthenes  is  always  accusing  the  citizens  of  Athens  generally 
with  reluctance  to  make  any  sacrifice  for  their  country,  .^schines 
apparently  thought  resistance  to  Philip  impossible,  and  saw  no 
way  for  Athens  to  remain  great  and  free,  a  view  in  which  he 
was  supported  by  so  good  a  man  as  Phocion.  Bribery,  ^schines 
as  a  practical  man  regarded  as  admitting  of  extenuating  circum- 
stances.^ As  a  practical  man  also  he  discountenanced  the  ex- 
travagant indulgence  of  the  desires,  and,  as  was  the  case  with 
many  other  people,  respectability  exhausted  the  sum  of  his 
morality.  This  is  not  a  flattering  character  of  ^schines,  and 
it  is  unnecessary  to  go  beyond  our  evidence  and  accuse  him  of 
hypocrisy,  -^schines  has  himself  challenged  comparison  with 
Demosthenes,  and  by  an  optical  illusion,  to  which  the  mind's 
eye  is  liable,  ^schines  seems  below  the  ordinary  level  of 
morality,  because  Demosthenes  is  so  much  above  it. 

In  discussing  Demosthenes  we  said  that  the  three  sources 
of  his  power  as  an  orator  were  the  magic  of  his  language,  the 
force  of  his  intellect,  and  his  lofty  morality.  In  the  present 
chapter,  in  order  to  show  how  ^schines  is  inferior  to  his 
rival,  we  have  compared  the  two  orators,  and  we  have  seen 
that  while  in  the  first  of  the  three  points  mentioned  .^scfriines 
is  little  below  Demosthenes,  in  the  remaining  two  points  he 
is  much  below  him.  In  order  now  to  mark  the  fact  that 
./Eschines,  though  inferior  to  Demosthenes,  could  yet  contest 
priority  with  him,  we  must  contrast  the  two  orators.  In  the 
first  place,  as  we  have  already  seen,  Demosthenes  is  the  trained 
and  practised  orator,  while  ^schines  is  a  man  with  a  natural 
gift  of  eloquence.  And  as  .^schines  represents  nature,  Demos- 
thenes art,  we  find  that  the  former  usually  spoke  extempore, 
while  the  latter  rarely  spoke  without  preparation.  A  further 
consequence  of  this  difi"ereuce  between  tbe  two  orators  is  that 
•whereas  Demosthenes  has  greater  capacity  for  argument  than 

^  I,  88,  Poverty  and  old  age  he  regards  as  extenuating  :  iKe'ivot  fxiv  ye  <A 
faKs.lTTWpoi.  oi  bvvdfievoL  yrjpas  &/ia  Kal  irevlav  vweveyKelv,  ra,  fiiyiffra  tQv  hf 
dfdpwiroLS  KaKuv.  This  was  not  a  view  peculiar  to,  and  therefore  specially 
conilemnatory  of  ^schines,  but  the  common  one.  Timocles,  a  poet  of  the 
Middle  Comedy,  says  in  the  Delos,  alluding  to  the  Harpalus  affair : 

A.  ei'Kr]<l>e  Kal  A-^fiuv  re  Kal  KaWicrdiprjs. 

B.  ir4vrjT€S  ^ffav,  wcrre  avyyvdofiriv  ^x'^- 

(Meineke,  F.C.M.  591.) 
We  must  judge  .^schines  by  the  standard  of  his  own  time.     Bribery  is  not 
unfrequently  defended  at  the  present  day. 


458  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

for  narrative,  with  -^schines  the  reverse  is  the  case.  As,  how 
ever,  argument  makes  greater  demands  on  the  attention  of  the 
hearer  than  does  narrative,  a  speech  by  Demosthenes  is  harder 
to  follow  than  is  one  by  ^schines  ;  and  as  argument  gives 
less  scope  than  narrative  for  the  graces  of  oratory,  the  speeches 
of  iEschines,  apart  from  considerations  as  to  the  matter,  are 
more  pleasing  than  those  of  Demosthenes.  As  regards  the 
emotions,  ^schines  relied  chiefly  on  pathos,  whereas  Demos- 
thenes appealed  to  the  indignation  of  his  hearers,  ^schines 
looked  by  preference  to  the  glorious  past,  Demosthenes  to  the 
calls  of  honour  in  the  present,  ^schines  was  satisfied  if  he 
complied  with  the  observances  of  religion,  Demosthenes  was 
possessed  with  the  necessity  of  morality.  These  points  of  con- 
trast may  suffice  to  indicate  that,  although  between  Demos- 
thenes and  ^schines  there  is  a  difference  in  degree,  there  is 
also  an  equally  important  diversity  in  genius,  ^schines  has 
not  and  does  not  deserve  our  sympathies  ;  but  more  closely 
than  any  other  orator  he  approached  the  merit  of  Demosthenes. 
Amongst  the  orators  of  the  Macedonian  party  Demades  ^  is 
next  in  importance  to  ^schines.  Demades  seems  to  have 
been  about  the  same  age  as  and  to  have  died  two  years  later 
than  Demosthenes,  i.e.,  B.C.  320.  He  first  appears  to  our 
notice  after  the  battle  of  Chaeronea.  He  had  no  shame  in 
avowing  that  Philip  had  bought  him,  and,  in  spite  of  that  fact, 
he  continued  until  Alexander's  death  the  most  important  man 
in  Athens,  with  the  exception  of  Demosthenes.  After  the 
destruction  of  Thebes,  Demades  saved  Athens  from  the  wrath 
of  Alexander  ;  and  the  Athenians,  in  return,  erected  a  statue  of 
Demades  in  the  market-place.  In  natural  power  Demades  was 
said  to  exceed  Demosthenes,  and  the  judgment  of  Theo- 
phrastus^  is  well  known,  that  as  an  orator  Demosthenes  was 
worthy  of  Athens,  Demades  above  it.  Unlike  Demosthenes, 
he  spoke  extempore,  and  consequently  none  of  his  speeches 
have  come  down  to  us.  As  he  himself  said,  his  master  in 
rhetoric  was  the  platform ;  his  speeches,  therefore,  probably 
lacked  art  both  in  the  treatment  of  the  subject-matter  and 
the  arrangement  of  his  speech.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had 
the  reputation  in  antiquity  ^  of  being  the  most  witty  of  Attic 
orators;   and  from  this  it  would  seem  that  the  power  of  his 

^  Arinddtji  is  contracted  from  Aij/jLeddris. 

*  Theophrastus,  a  pupil  of  Aristotle,  was  born  B.C.  372  and  died  about 
B.C.  283.  Of  the  two  hundred  or  more  works  which  he  wrote  we  possess  his 
"  Characters,"  "  Science  of  Plants,"  "  Natural  Caiises,"  "  Mineralogy,"  and 
"  On  Fire,"  more  or  le.ss  complete. 

•  "  Demades  praeter  ceteros  fertur  (facetus)."    Cicero,  Orat.  90. 


ORATORY  :    .ESCHINES.  459 

oratory  rescmUed  that  of  Pericles  in  consisting  of  pointed  and 
striking  expressions.  The  impression  which  these  made  on 
his  hearers  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  of  some  of  them 
having  floated  down  to  our  own  time.  Thus,  Macedonia,  he 
said,  after  the  loss  of  Alexander,  was  a  blinded  Cyclops.  The 
theatre-money  which  the  Athenians  received  was  the  glue  of 
the  democracy.  The  herald  of  the  city  was  the  public  cock. 
Demosthenes  was  like  the  swallows,  who  will  neither  let  you 
sleep  nor  wake  you.  He  defended  his  policy  on  the  ground 
that  he  was  steering  the  wreck  of  Athens.  "When  the  Athe- 
nians objected  to  worship  Alexander  as  a  god,  he  told  them  to 
mind  that,  in  their  anxiety  to  defend  heaven,  they  did  not  lose 
the  earth.  When  a  report  came  to  Athens  that  Alexander  was 
dead,  and  the  Athenians  were  much  delighted.  Demades  said, 
"  Alexander  is  not  dead.  If  he  were,  the  whole  world  would 
smell  his  corpse." 

Aristogiton,  against  whom  the  second  speech  of  Dinarchus 
is  directed,  was  probably  born  about  B.C.  370.  He  was  most 
active  after  the  battle  of  Chaeronea,  when  he  opposed  the 
measures  of  Hyperides.  The  names  of  some  of  his  speeches 
are  given  by  Suidas  and  Photius.  and  quotations  from  him 
occur  in  Harpocration.^  Athenaeus.  Tsetzes,-  and  elsewhere.  He 
seems  to  have  employed  much  abuse  and  to  have  set  himself 
up  as  the  "  watch-dog  of  the  democracy."  Pytheas.  born  about 
B.C.  356,  began  his  political  life  as  an  anti- Macedonian,  but 
went  over  on  the  occasion  of  the  Harpalus  affair  and  became  a 
wealthy  man.  On  the  death  of  Alexander,  he.  like  others  of 
the  Macedonian  party  at  Athens,  suffered.  His  end  is  not 
known  to  us.  We  have  quotations  from  him  in  Eutilius  Lnpus.^ 
His  speeches  seem  to  have  been,  according  to  Suidas,*  inso- 
lent and  disjointed.  The  quotations  show  an  affection  for 
antithesis.  Menesaechmus  succeeded  Lycurgus  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  finance  at  Athens,  but  whether  he  was  an  opponent 
of  or  belonged  to  the  extreme  section  of  the  patriotic  party  is 
unknown.     We  have  nothing  by  him,  and  he  seems  to  have 

^  In  his  lexicon  to  the  "  Ten  Orators."  His  date  is  the  third  or  fourth 
century  A.D. 

2  Johannes  Tsetzes,  about  A.D.  1160,  was  a  learned  grammarian  of  Con- 
stantinople, the  author  of  Scholia  to  Homer,  Hesiod,  Aristophanes,  &c., 
and  of  a  work  entitled  XiXidSes,  containing  much  mixed  information,  and 
composed  in  so-called  political  verses. 

3  Rutilius  Lupus  lived  in  the  time  of  Tiberius,  and  wrote  "De  Figuris 
Sententiarum  et  Elocutionia ; "  and  in  illustration  of  the  figures  of  thought 
and  speech  he  quotes  from  various  authors  (translating  Greek  quotations). 

*  oiiK  eKpidrj  fiera  tQiv  \oi.irQy  pTjTopuv  {i.e.  in  the  canon  of  the  "Ten  Orators") 
if  ffpaffvs  Kai  5i€a-iraafiiv«t. 


460  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

been  watery  and  weak.^  To  Callicrates,  the  Pergamum  school 
ascribed  a  speech  accusing  Demosthenes  of  illegality ;  and 
Philinus'  name  has  come  down  to  us  because  he  opposed  the 
proposal  of  Lycurgus  that  statues  should  be  erected  of  the 
three  great  tragedians.  Eubulus,  the  political  patron  of  ^s- 
chines,  at  first  opposed  to  and  then  a  supporter  of  Philip,^  is 
mentioned  by  Aristotle^  as  quoting  Plato  in  one  of  his  speeches 
to  the  effect  that  many  people  admitted  they  were  bad.  Of 
Philocrates,  one  of  the  ambassadors  sent  to  treat  for  peace  with 
Philip,  who  openly  boasted  of  having  been  bribed,  we  have 
not  the  least  fragment  left.  Hagnonides  accused  Theophrastu3 
of  impiety  unsuccessfully,*  and  Phocion  of  treason  successfully, 
and  wrote  an  Accusation  of  Oratory.^  Stratocles,  "the  most 
persuasive  and  pernicious  of  men,"  ^  was  conspicuous  for  the 
vileness  of  his  servility  to  Philip  and  his  shameless  joy  at  the 
disasters  of  his  country.  One  or  two  sentences  alone  of  his 
have  survived,^  and  Cicero  credits  him  with  being  the  inventor 
of  the  story  that  Tliemistocles  poisoned  himself  with  the  blood 
of  a  bull.s  Of  Androtion,  against  whom  a  speech  of  Demos- 
thenes is  directed,  we  have  a  simile  preserved  by  Aristotle.' 
Cydias  made  a  speech  on  the  colonisation  of  Samos.^^  ^sion 
was  a  fellow-pupil  with  Demosthenes,  and  is  praised  by  Aris- 
totle for  his  metaphors,  although  to  us  they  appear  worn  out.^^ 
To  these  may  be  added  the  names  of  Democles  (or  Democlides), 

^  Dionysius,  Dinarchus  11,  iSafAjs  Kal  KexvfJ-^fos  Kal  xj/vxpis. 
2  Dem.  19,  292.     Kai  iv  /xev  ry  SrJ/uw  KarripQ  <i>tXi7r7ry  Kal  Kara,  rCov  iraidww 
iifivves  9)  fiT]v  (ZTToAwXe/'at  ^iXLTnrov  cLv  ^ovXeaOat.     Cf.  De  Cor.  21. 

*  Rhet.  i.  15.  oXov  Ef'/3oi^Xos  iv  to1%  SiKaarrjploLS  exp^craro  Kara  Xdp?;TOS  (fi 
nXixTWj'  elTre  irpbs  ' Apxi-fiiov,  Htl  ewiSiduKev  ev  ry  TrdXet  to  o/xoXoyelv  irovi)- 
poiis  elvai. 

*  This  we  learn  from  the  "Lives  of  the  Philosophers,"  by  Diogenes Laer- 
tius  (37),  who  lived  about  A.D.  200,  and  came  from  Laertia  in  Cilicia. 

^  Quintilian,  ii.  17,  15  :  "  Agno  quidem  detraxit  sibi  inscriptione  ipsa 
fideni,  qua  rhetorices  accusatiouem  professus  esc." 

^  Dem.  adv.  Paut.  994O.  2T/)aro*fXet  TcjJ  irLdauordrif  iwrrCiv  dvOpdyirup 
Kal  TrovripoTdTip. 

^  Photius,  447A,  17.  dpovrai.  Kal  avelperai  rb  Q-i}^aiwv  8.<ttv,  7u»  jvva- 
ywvtcra/xii'wv  vpuv  rov  Trpbs  'PiXi.Tnrov  TroXe/xov.  Rutilius Lupus,  ii,  20  ;  "Nam 
veheinenter  eorum  vitiis  invehi  non  licebat,  reticere  omnino  non  expediebat: 
Buspiciose  loqui  potissimum  placebat." 

8  lirutus,  II  :  "Stiatoclem,  ut  Themistoelis  mortem  rlietorice  et  tragice 
ornare  posset,  finxisse  ilium  cum  taurum  immolavisset,  excepisse  sanguinem 
patera  et  eo  poto  mortuum  coucidisse."  (This  impossible  story,  however, 
goes  back  to  the  time  of  Aristophanes.)  If  Stratocles  thought  this  method  of 
death  tragic  his  taste  was  as  defective  as  his  knowledge. 

*  Rhet.  iii.  4 :  Sri  Syaotos  [TSpieys  ^v]  rots  sk  tQv  Sefffiuv  KwiSlois '  iKeiva 
T€  ydp  wpoairiiTTOVTa  SaKveiv  ical  'Idptia  XvdipTa  iK  tC)v  Secr/xwv  elvai  X'^^^'"'^"' 

^^  lb.  IL  6.  "  lb.  iii.  10.     E.ij.  "  Greece  cries  aloud." 


ORATORY  :    .ESCHINES  46  I 

B  pupil  of  Theophrastus  ;  and  probably  Arch  on,  in  B.C.  316  r^ 
I-eosthenes,  a  sycophant ;  ^  Charisius ;  ^  Euthias,  the  accuser 
of  Phryne  ;  ^  and  Lacritus,  of  whom  mention  is  made  in  the 
speech  of  [Demosthenes]  against  Lacritus.^ 

In  conclusion  it  remains  for  us  to  say  a  few  words  with  regard 
to  the  causes  of  the  decline  of  oratory  after  the  death  of  Demos- 
thenes. They  are  two  :  the  loss  of  political  freedom  and  the 
cessation  of  the  reaction  of  the  public  on  the  artist.  The  effect 
of  the  loss  of  political  freedom  on  political  oratory  is  readily 
understood.  When  the  fate  of  the  country  was  at  stake,  and 
when  the  Assembly  had  the  power  of  deciding  that  fate,  an 
orator  and  a  patriot  like  Demosthenes  had  the  highest  incentive 
to  put  forth  all  his  powers  of  oratory  in  order  to  move  the 
Assembly  to  the  proper  and  honourable  course  of  action.  When, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  Assembly  lost  its  power  of  deciding  what 
the  action  of  the  country  should  be,  and  when  consequently 
political  debates  could  have  no  practical  result,  then  patriotism 
could  supply  no  incentive  to  the  orator,  and  dehberative  oratory 
so  far  as  it  survived  was  unreal.  Thus  the  loss  of  political 
freedom  resulted  in  the  decline  of  deliberative,  the  highest  kind 
of  oratory.  It  also  brought  about  the  decline  of  forensic  oratory. 
Its  action  in  this  case  is  not  quite  so  obvious,  but  it  was  equally 
eflFective.  Matter  for  decision  was  not  withdrawn  from  the  law 
courts  so  entirely  as  it  was  practically  from  the  Assembly  ;  but 
all  that  important  part  of  Attic  law  which  dealt  with  con- 
stitutional, and  therefore  political  points,  naturally  shared  the 
fate  of  political  debate ;  and  in  dealing  with  the  remaining 
cases  the  citizens  of  Athens  had  in  the  first  place  to  do  only 
with  petty  matters,  not  fitted  to  develop  the  moral  and  intel- 
lectual qualities  of  an  orator;  and  in  the  second  place,  even  in 
dealing  with  these  trivial  cases  they  were  not  acting  as  a  free 
people  giving  judgment  in  accordance  with  their  own  free  laws. 
In  analysing  the  superiority  of  Demosthenes  as  an  orator,  we 
found  that  it  consisted  of  his  moral  and  intellectual  power  and 
the  beauty  of  his  language :  and  these  three  elements  are  indis- 
pensable for  oratory  of  the  highest  kind.  Applying  this  test 
tc  the  oratory  of  the  decline,  we  see  then  that  forensic  oratory 
never  had  for  its  subject  issues  admitting  of  fervour,  righteous 
indignation,  or  self-sacrifice ;  and  that  the  matters  it  dealt  with 
were  not  momentous  enough  to  call  for  or  develop  the  powers  of 
a  great  mind.  It  was  only  the  third  element  of  oratory  which 
admitted  of  cultivation,  and  this,  separated  from  the  others,  ran 

^  Ruhnken,  Rut.  Lup.  92.  2  ^schines,  Falsa  Keg.  124. 

•  Rut.  Lup.  i  10.  *  Lexicon  Seguieranum,  57.  •  15  and  41. 


462  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

to  rank  luxuriance.  This  excessive  attention  to  form  resulting 
from  the  negligence  of  matter  is  partly  what  is  meant  by 
"  Asianism."  What  we  have  said  with  regard  to  the  decline  of 
oratory  applies  to  all  Greek  oratory,  wherever  cultivated,  until 
about  B.C.  150.  As,  however,  it  was  in  Asia  Minor  that  oratory 
during  this  period  was  principally  cultivated,  the  qualities  of 
the  oratory  of  the  decline  have  come  to  be  grouped  togethei 
under  the  term  Asianism.  After  B.C.  150,  a  reaction  in  favour 
of  the  oratory  of  Demosthenes  set  in  and  was  termed  "  Atticism." 
It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  "  Asianism  " 
was  confined  to  Asia  ]\Iinor.  The  seeds  of  it  were  sown  in 
Athens  even  before  the  time  of  Demosthenes,  for  Isocrates 
cultivated  form  to  the  exclusion  of  matter ;  and  its  results  are 
plainly  visible  in  Dinarchus,  the  last  of  the  ten  Attic  orators. 
The  first  characteristic  then  of  Asianism,  excessive  attention  to 
the  mere  language  of  a  speech,  is  only  the  development  of  a 
tendency  already  existing  in  Attic  oratory.  But  although 
Asianism  may  thus  be  traced  back  to  Isocrates,  it  is  very  dif- 
ferent from  him,  and  it  is  this  difference  which  constitutes  the 
second  characteristic  of  Asianism.  Isocrates  worked  on  a  method 
and  with  a  theory  :  Asianism  had  none.  Here  again  Asianism 
was  but  the  development  of  a  bad  tendency  already  existing  in 
Attic  oratory.  vEschines,  like  Isocrates,  was  lacking  in  the 
intellectual  and  moral  elements  of  oratory,  and  therefore  achieves 
his  greatest  success  in  the  domain  of  mere  language.  But  he 
diff'ers  from  Isocrates  in  the  fact  that  he  had  no  theory,  no 
culture,  and  but  rarely  wrote  a  speech  beforehand,  while  Isocrates 
would  spend  ten  years  in  writing  an  oration,  ^schines  was  a 
native  orator,  Isocrates  a  trained  rhetorician.  In  this  respect 
then  J^schines  is,  rather  than  Isocrates,  the  direct  ancestor  of 
Asianism.  But  although  Asiatic  oratory  resembles  that  of 
-^schines  in  being  based  on  no  method,  there  is  this  difference 
between  them,  that  the  one  is  successful,  the  other  not.  Doubt- 
less the  reason  partly  is  that  ^Eschines  possessed  natural  gifts 
which  the  Asiatic  orators  did  not :  but  this  does  not  wholly 
account  for  the  extravagances  of  Asianism,  and  for  a  full  ex- 
planation we  must  turn  to  the  second  main  cause  of  the  decline 
of  oratory  after  the  death  of  Demosthenes — the  cessation  of  the 
reaction  of  public  on  artist. 

In  the  case  of  oratory  even  more  than  in  any  other  branch 
of  literature  or  art  is  it  clear  that  the  artist  is  reacted  on  by  his 
pulilic ;  for  the  practical  object  of  speaking  is  conviction,  and 
in  order  to  convince  his  audience  a  speaker  must  neither  rise 
above  their  comprehension  nor  sink  below  their  expectations. 


I 


ORATORY:    iESCHINES.  463 

The  success  which  spurs  to  further  and  higher  exertion  comes 
more  directly  to  the  orator  than  to  any  other  artist,  as  does  also 
the  failure  which  teaches  a  lesson  for  the  future.  The  function 
then  of  the  public  in  the  development  of  art  or  literature  is  to 
encourage  merit  and  check  extravagance.  Remove  the  check, 
and  extravagance  develops  Avithout  restraint.  In  the  period 
of  Asianism  the  check  was  removed  and  the  extravagance  was 
developed  which  was  characteristic  of  Asianism.  In  order  to 
understand  how  and  why  this  check  was  removed,  we  must  call 
to  mind  first  the  difference  in  size  between  the  city-states  of 
Greece  and  the  countries  or  nation-states  of  modern  Europe ; 
and  secondly,  the  different  means  of  reaching  the  public  in  the 
two  cases.  The  modern  public  reads,  the  ancient  public 
listened.  All  the  citizens  of  Athens  could  be  gathered  to- 
gether in  the  theatre  to  hear  a  drama  :  every  citizen  might  be 
present  at  the  Assembly :  great  festivals  drew  a  large  concourse 
of  people  together  in  whom  the  essayist  or  the  historian  couy 
find  an  audience.  During  the  creative  period  of  Greek  lite 
rature  the  normal  way  of  reaching  the  public  was  through  their 
ears,  not,  as  is  the  case  in  modern  times,  through  their  eyes ; 
for  even  if  most  Athenians  were  able  to  decipher  the  letters  of 
the  alphabet,  they  were  not  in  the  habit  of  reading.  But  every 
Athenian  was  in  the  habit  of  hearing  the  oratory  of  the  law 
courts  and  the  Assembly,  the  epic  and  lyrical  poetry  recited  by 
the  rhapsodists,  the  essays  and  histories — or  portions  thereof 
• — read  at  the  great  festivals  and  the  dramas  performed  in 
the  theatre  :  and  in  consequence  the  literary  education  of  the 
Athenians  was,  at  any  rate  in  the  best  time  of  Athens,  better 
than  that  of  a  modern  nation,  even  with  the  advantage  which 
the  latter  possesses  of  the  printing  press.  But  in  the  period  of 
the  decline  of  oratory  the  Greeks  were  going  through  a  transi- 
tion stage  :  the  law-courts  and  assembly  were  less  attended,  the 
theatre  was  no  longer  the  means  of  conveying  the  best  tragedies 
to  the  public  ;  literature  was  ceasing  to  reach  the  public  through 
the  ear,  while  at  the  same  time  the  cost  of  multiplying  copies  of 
a  manuscript  had  not  yet  been  so  much  reduced  as  to  enable  the 
public  to  become  as  a  rule  readers.  But  although  the  means  of 
conveying  literature,  whether  orally  or  by  means  of  manuscripts, 
were  thus  temporarily  decreasing,  the  demand  was  not  decreas- 
ing. The  result  was  the  practice  by  which  the  owner  of  a  manu- 
script collected  his  friends  together  and  read  it  aloud  to  them. 
We  have  seen  that  this  had  already  been  done  in  the  case  of 
Isocrates'  orations.  It  was  even  done  in  the  case  of  tragedies : 
tragedians  who  composed  solely  for  this  kind  of  publicity  had 


464  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

come  to  be  called  "  Readers."  The  comedies  of  Menander  were, 
many  of  them,  written  not  to  be  performed,  but  to  be  read  in 
this  manner  at  social  gatherings.  The  consequence  of  this  was 
that  an  author's  works  did  not  become  known  to  the  whole  or 
to  the  larger  part  of  the  public,  as  before  and  after  this  time, 
but  only  to  small  groups.  That  is  to  say,  the  check  which  the 
great  public  puts  on  extravagance  was  almost  entirely  taken  off ; 
the  general  recognition  of  the  public  was  not  to  be  obtained, 
and  thus  the  artist's  greatest  incentive  was  removed.  From  this 
point  of  view  it  is  important  to  notice  that  the  improvement  in 
taste  which  brought  Atticism  into  favour  and  drove  out  Asianism 
dates  from  the  time  when  the  systematic  employment  of  slave 
labour  by  the  Romans  for  multiplying  manuscripts  reinstated 
the  general  public  to  its  critical  function. 

The  decline  of  Greek  oratory  was  then  due  to  the  develop- 
ment by  appropriate  conditions  of  bad  tendencies  already  exist- 
ing in  the  oratory  of  Athens.  These  tendencies  were  :  to  neglect 
matter  for  form,  as  in  the  case  of  Isocrates  ;  to  dispense  with 
the  theory  and  training  necessary  for  an  orator,  as  in  the  case 
of  vEschines  ;  and  to  deviate,  when  unchecked,  from  the  standard 
of  taste  and  propriety.  The  conditions  which  developed  these 
tendencies  were :  the  decrease,  due  to  the  loss  of  political  free- 
dom, in  the  demand  on  the  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  of 
the  orator ;  and  the  cessation  of  the  reaction  of  public  on  artist, 
due  to  the  difficulty  of  publication  at  that  time. 


BOOK     III. 

PHILOSOPHY, 


CHAPTER  L 

PLATO  AND  THE  PHILOSOPHERS  BEFORE  UM. 

With  the  history  of  philosophy  we  have  nothing  here  to  do. 
"We  are  concerned  with  the  philosophers  only  so  far  as  they 
ati'ected  the  history  of  Greek  literature,  and  consequently  it  will 
be  found  that  many  names  of  philosophical  interest  are  omitted. 
In  the  first  place,  philosophers  like  Thales,  Socrates,  and  Pytha- 
goras, who  left  nothing  in  writing,  find  no  place  in  a  history  of 
literature.  In  the  next  place,  philosophers  like  Xenophanes 
and  Parmenides,  who  composed  in  verse,  have  indeed  a  place  in 
a  history  of  literature,  but  not  in  the  section  of  it  dealing  with 
the  history  of  prose.  While,  finally,  Sophists  like  Antisthenes, 
who  were  engaged  in  philosophical  pursuits,  but  were  pro- 
fessedly rhetoricians,  find  their  natural  place  in  the  history  of 
prose  ;  but  they  are  links  in  the  chain  of  oratorical,  not  philoso- 
phical prose,  and  are  not,  therefore,  dealt  with  in  this  section. 

The  first  prose  philosopher — if  we  set  aside  Pherecydes  of 
Syrus,  about  whom,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is  some  doubt — was 
Anaximander  of  Miletus,  who  lived  about  the  beginning  of  the 
sixth  century  B.C.,  and  seems  to  have  been  a  person  of  some 
importance  in  his  native  town.  His  philosophy  was  of  a  physi- 
cal description,  and  he  wrote  a  work  to  which  (probably  in 
later  times)  the  common  title  On  Nature  was  given.  The  dialect 
which  he  employed  was  naturally  Ionic,  and  the  influence  exer- 
cised by  poetry  even  on  those  who  strove  to  write  prose,  Avas 
to  be  traced  in  the  poetical  cast  of  his  writings.  About  the 
same  time  as  Anaximander  lived  Anaximenes,  also  of  Miletus. 
He  probably  was  acquainted  with  Anaximander :  his  philosophy 

2  a 


4^6  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

was  physical,  his  work  was  entitled  On  Nature,  his  dialect  waa 
Ionic,  and  his  style  was  bald.  As  followers  of  Anaximenes  are 
mentioned  Diogenes  of  Apollonia  and  Idaeus  of  Himera.  More 
interesting  is  Heraclitus  of  Ephesus,  who  flourished  about  B.C. 
500.  He  was  of  royal  descent,  and  is  said  to  have  been  offered 
the  supreme  magistracy  of  the  town,  and  to  have  refused  it. 
Whether  this  is  or  is  not  actually  true — and  we  have  no  trust- 
worthy information  about  the  facts  of  his  life — it  accords  with 
the  character  of  the  man,  as  it  shows  itself  in  the  fragments  of 
his  work  On  Nature.  He,  if  not  a  misanthrope,  certainly  had 
a  strong  contempt  for  most  men.  He  dedicated  his  work  to 
Diana,  for  he  did  not  expect  men  to  appreciate  it.  He  played 
with  children,  and  asked  whether  that  was  not  a  better  occupa- 
tion than  politics.  Poets,  historians,  and  philosophers  he  had 
no  high  opinion  of.  Learning  was  not  the  same  thing  as  intelli- 
gence, he  said,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  case  of  Hesiod,  Pythagoras, 
Xenophanes,  and  Hecataeus.  As  for  Homer  and  Archilochus, 
they  deserved  public  scourging. 

Heraclitus  was  surnamed  "  the  obscure,"  and  although  there 
is  no  doubt  that  his  obscurity  was  in  its  nature  and  causes  much 
akin  to  that  of  Thucydides,  and  would  have  characterised  him 
to  a  large  extent  even  if  he  had  lived  at  a  later  stage  in  the 
development  of  prose,  still  the  immaturity  of  prose  composition 
doubtless  added  to  the  difficvilty  which  Heraclitus  found  in  ex- 
pressing himself.  The  simple  narration  of  events  is  a  task  which 
prose  naturally  first  comes  to  perform  with  ease  and  success. 
The  exposition  of  an  argument  is  a  matter  of  more  difficulty, 
and  requires  time.  Even  Herodotus  shows  this,  for  the  speeches 
which  occur  in  his  history  are  considerably  more  complicated  in 
syntax  and  less  easy  of  apprehension  than  his  narrative  ;  while 
in  Thucydides  the  same  thing  is  even  more  apparent.  His  nar- 
rative is  very  clear,  but  the  speeches  are  difficult.  Philosophy 
is,  again,  more  difficult  to  express  clearly  than  is  an  oratorical 
argument.  It  contains  an  ai'gument,  like  a  speech,  but  it  deals 
much  less  with  concrete  ideas,  and  much  more  with  what  is 
vague,  as  well  as  abstract,  than  oratory  does ;  and  consequently 
in  the  history  of  Greek  prose  literature  we  find  that  philo- 
sophical prose  is  later  and  longer  in  developing  than  even 
oratorical  prose,  M'hile  both  philosophy  and  oratory  required 
much  more  labour  than  history  to  bring  them  to  perfection. 

Zeno  of  Elea  was  born  about  B.C.  500,  and  became  the  pupil 
of  Parmenides,  and  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Eleatic  school  of 
philosophers.  Most  of  his  life  he  spent  at  Elea  by  preference, 
though  he  visited  Athens  occasionally ;  he  was  heard  by  Socrates, 


philosophy:  plato.  467 

»nd  instructed  Pericles.  His  life  was  patriotic,  and  he  rendered 
great  services  to  his  native  city.  Finally,  when  he  returned 
from  Athens  to  Elea,  he  found  it  in  the  power  of  a  tyrant, 
against  whom  he  conspired.  The  conspiracy  was,  however, 
detected ;  and  when  he  was  questioned  as  to  his  fellow-con- 
spirators, he,  by  a  bold  stroke,  named  all  the  adherents  of  the 
tyrant.  It  is  said  that,  availing  themselves  of  the  dismay  thus 
caused  in  the  tyrant,  the  people  rose  and  killed  him.  The 
manner  of  Zeno's  death  is  unknown.  Zeno  took  up  the  system 
of  Parmenides,  and  endeavoured  to  establish  it,  not  directly  and 
positively,  but  negatively,  by  refuting  the  arguments  brought 
against  it.  For  this  purpose,  or  rather  in  this  endeavour,  he 
was  led  to  the  use  of  the  dialectical  method.  This  method  had, 
indeed,  been  used,  to  a  certain  extent,  before  Zeno  by  Parme- 
nides. Probably  the  same  circumstances  compelled  Zeno  as 
compelled  Parmenides  to  use  it,  i.e.,  the  necessity  of  meeting 
the  arguments  brought  against  the  Eleatic  philosophy  by  the 
keen  reasoning  powers  of  the  Athenians,  whom  both  Parmenides 
and  Zeno  endeavoured  to  win  over  to  their  philosophy.  The 
essence  of  the  dialectical  method  was  to  convict  an  opponent  of 
the  falsity  of  his  opinions  by  reducing  them  to  an  absurdity. 
Thus  Zeno  endeavoured  to  show  that  Opinion  was  untrust- 
worthy by  the  absurdities  wliich  it  led  to,  and  for  this  purpose 
he  invented  his  four  arguments  against  the  possibility  of  Motion 
— Motion  being  testified  to  by  Opinion,  but  disapproved  by 
Reason.  Of  these  four  arguments,  the  best  known  is  that  known 
as  "Achilles  and  the  Tortoise."  A  simpler  one,  however,  is  the 
first  :  "  Motion  is  impossible,  because  before  that  which  is  in 
motion  can  reach  the  end,  it  must  reach  the  middle  point ;  but 
this  middle  point  then  becomes  the  end,  and  the  same  objection 
applies  to  it,  since  to  meet  it  the  object  in  motion  must  traverse 
a  middle  point ;  and  so  on  ad  infinitum,  seeing  that  matter  is 
infinitely  divisible."  ^ 

Auaxagoras  was  born  in  Clazomenae  in  Ionia  about  B.C.  500. 
Unlike  Zeno  and  Parmenides,  he  took  no  part  in  p  litical  or 
practical  affairs,  but  devoted  himself  solely  to  philosophy.  He 
allowed  nothing  to  stand  between  him  and  his  philosophical 
pursuits.  All  his  worldly  substance  was  sacrificed  to  this  fixed 
idea,  and  he  declared  Inmself  well  pleased  with  the  return 
which  philosophy  brought  him  for  the  sacrifice.  If  he  sought 
truth  thus  passionately  and  devotedly,  he  showed  equal  courage 
and  determination  in  publishing  the  truth.  The  sun,  he  had 
satisfied  himself,  was  a  molten  stone  of  considerable  size,  and 
^  Lewes'  History  of  Philosophy,  i.  63. 


468  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

this  opinion  he  did  not  conceal.  But  to  the  Athenians,  who 
believed  that  Helios,  the  sun,  was  a  god,  Anaxagoras'  declaration 
was  blasphemy  and  atheism  of  an  unmitigated  character ;  and 
Anaxagoras,  who  had  long  enjoyed  the  intimacy  of  Pericles  and 
the  acquaintance  of  all  the  many  men  of  genius  to  be  met  at 
Athens,  was  banished.  He  consoled  himself  in  Lampsacus 
with  the  reflection  that  it  was  not  he  who  had  lost  Athens, 
but  Athens  that  had  lost  him.  He  died  in  Lampsacus  at  the 
age  of  seventy-three. 

Finally,  we  can  only  make  brief  mention  of  some  other 
philosophers.  Hippo  of  Samos  lived  at  Athens  in  the  time 
of  Pericles  and  belonged  to  the  school  of  Thales.  Aristotle^ 
epeaks  contemptuously  of  him,  and  seems  to  think  he  hardly 
deserves  the  name  of  philosopher,  Cratylus  followed  the  doc- 
trines of  Heraclitus  and  was  a  tutor  of  Plato's.  Philolaus, 
a  contemporary  of  Socrates,  was  the  first  Pythagorean  to  com- 
mit the  tenets  of  the  school  to  writing,  though  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  fragments  Avhich  have  come  down  to  us  under  his 
name  are  genuine.  Belissus  of  Samos  continued  the  teaching 
of  the  Eleatic  school  after  Zeno.  Hermotimus,  Archelaus,  and 
Metrodorus  were  pupils  or  followers  of  Anaxagoras.  Demo- 
critus  of  Abdera  was  born  about  B.C.  460.  He  travelled  more 
widely,  he  boasted,  than  any  other  man,  and  was  received  when 
he  returned  to  Abdera  with  the  greatest  respect  for  his  travels 
and  his  learning.  The  distinction  of  founding  the  philosophy 
which  regards  all  things  as  ultimately  consisting  of  atoms 
is  shared  between  him  and  Leucippus,  whose  birthplace  is 
variously  given  as  Abdera,  Miletus,  or  Elea.  Amongst  the 
Sophists,  in  addition  to  the  most  famous,  Protagoras,  Prodicus, 
Gorgias,  Thrasymachus,  and  Hippias,  who  have  been  mentioned 
elsewhere,  we  must  here  give  the  names  of  Polus,  Euthydemus, 
and  Dionysodorus.  Amongst  the  followers  of  Socrates  must  be 
mentioned  Euclides  (not  the  mathematician  nor  the  archon)  of 
Megara,  who  was  present  at  the  death  of  Socrates ;  Phaedo  of 
Elis  and  his  pupil  Menedemus ;  Antisthenes,  who  has  been 
mentioned  elsewhere  ;  Aristippus,  the  founder  of  the  Cyrenaic 
Bchool ;  while  to  this  school  belonged  Theodorus,  Bion,  and 
Euemerus,  who  invented  a  means  of  explaining  mythology  as 
containing  the  exploits  of  famous  men  who  after  death  came 
to  be  regarded  as  gods,  which  is  only  now  dying  out. 

Plato,  whose  real  name  was  Aristocles,  but  who  came  to  be 
called  Plato  because  of  either  the  breadth  of  his  brow  or  the 
breadth  of  his  shoulders,  was  born,  according  to  one  account,  in 
'  De  Anima,  i.  2  :  Met.  i.  3. 


philosophy:  plato.  469 

^gina,  where  his  father  held  a  colonial  allotment,  or,  according 
to  another  more  probable  account,  in  Athens.  The  year  of  his 
birth  was  either  B.C.  428  or  B.c.  427  ;  and  the  seventh  day  of 
the  month  Thargelion  was  celebrated  for  centuries  by  his  dis- 
cipies  as  the  day  of  his  birth.  On  his  mother's  side  he  was 
said  to  be  connected  with  Solon,  while  his  father  was  descended 
from  Codrus.  Critias,  the  leader  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  and 
Charmides  were  closely  related  to  Plato  ;  and  thus  he  was  born 
and  bred  in  the  midst  of  aristocratic  conditions.  He  owed  his 
introduction  into  political  life  to  Critias  and  Charmides,  and  he 
Beems  to  have  been  conscious  and  proud  of  his  illustrious  de- 
scent,^ He  had  two  brothers,  Glaucon  and  Adeimantus  (who 
cannot  be  the  Glaucon  and  Adeimantus  of  the  Republic,  because 
the  dialogue  is  supposed  to  have  taken  place  before  his  brothers 
were  born),  and  a  sister  named  Potone. 

He  was  fully  educated  in  the  three  branches  of  Greek  educa- 
tion— letters,  music,  and  athletics.  Dionysius,  a  grammarian, 
taught  him  to  read  and  write ;  Dracon  and  Metellus  of  Agri- 
gentum  taught  him  music ;  Ariston  of  Argos  gymnastics,  in 
which  he  is  said  to  have  become  so  proficient  as  to  carry  o£E 
prizes  at  the  Isthmian  and  Olympian  games.  In  his  youth  he 
is  said  to  have  made  essays  in  all  kinds  of  literature — epic, 
tragedy,  dithyramb,  and  lyric,  and  in  painting  as  well  as  in 
poetry.  It  is  uncertain  at  what  age  Plato  was  instructed  in 
philosophy  by  Cratylus,  the  follower  of  Heraclitus,  but  perhaps 
we  may  regard  it  as  previous  to  the  time  when  Plato  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Socrates.  This  event,  important  in  the  life  of 
Plato  and  the  history  of  philosophy,  took  place  probably  about 
B.C.  407,  when  Plato  was  twenty  years  of  age ;  and  the  ac- 
quaintance, formed  possibly  through  Critias,  lasted  until  the 
time  of  Socrates'  death  in  B.C.  399.  "  But,"  says  Mr.  Grote, 
"  though  Plato  may  have  commenced  at  the  age  of  twenty  his 
acquaintance  with  Socrates,  he  cannot  have  been  exclusively 
occupied  in  philosophical  pursuits  between  the  nineteenth  and 
twenty-fifth  year  of  his  age — that  is,  between  409-403  B.C. 
He  was  carried,  partly  by  his  own  dispositions,  to  other  matters 
besides  philosophy  ;  and  even  if  such  dispositions  had  not  existed, 
the  exigencies  of  the  time  pressed  upon  him  imperatively  as  an 
Athenian  citizen.  Even  under  ordinary  circumstances,  a  young 
Athenian  of  eighteen  years  of  age,  as  soon  as  he  was  enrolled  on 
the  public  register  of  citizens,  was  required  to  take  the  memo- 
rable military  oath  in  the  chapel  of  Aglaurus,  and  to  serve  on 
active  duty,  constant  or  nearly  constant,  for  two  years  in  various 
1  Charm.  15SA,  1S7K ;  Tim.  aoD. 


47 O  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

posts  throughout  Attica  for  the  defence  of  the  country.  But 
the  six  years  from  409-403  B.C.  "were  years  of  an  extraordinary 
character.  They  inehided  the  most  strenuous  public  efforts,  the 
severest  suffering,  and  the  gravest  political  revolution  that  had 
ever  occurred  at  Athens.  Every  Athenian  citizen  was  of  neces- 
sity put  upon  constant  (almost  daily)  military  service,  either 
abroad  or  in  Attica,  against  the  Lacedaemonian  garrison  estab- 
lished in  the  permanent  fortified  post  of  Dekeleia,  within  sight 
of  the  Athenian  Acropolis,  So  habitually  were  the  citizens 
obliged  to  be  on  guard,  that  Athens,  according  to  Thucydides, 
became  a  military  post  rather  than  a  city.  It  is  probable  that 
Plato,  by  his  family  and  its  place  on  the  census,  belonged  to 
the  Athenian  Hippeis  or  horsemen,  who  were  in  constant  em- 
ployment for  the  defence  of  the  territory.  But  at  any  rate, 
either  on  horseback,  or  on  foot,  or  on  shipboard,  a  robust  young 
citizen  like  Plato,  Avhose  military  age  commenced  in  409,  must 
have  borne  his  fair  share  in  this  hard  but  indispensable  duty. 
.  .  .  From  the  dangers,  fatigues,  and  sufferings  of  such  an  his- 
torical decade  no  Athenian  citizen  could  escape,  whatever  might 
be  his  feeling  towards  the  existing  democracy,  or  however  averse 
he  might  be  to  public  employment  by  natural  temper.  But 
Plato  was  not  thus  averse  during  the  earlier  years  of  his  adult 
life.  We  know  from  his  own  letters  that  he  then  felt  strongly 
the  impulse  of  political  ambition  usual  with  young  Athenians  of 
good  family.  .  .  .  Whether  Plato  ever  spoke  with  success  in 
the  public  assembly  we  do  not  know  :  he  is  said  to  have  been 
shy  by  nature,  and  his  voice  was  thin  and  feeble,  ill  adapted 
for  the  Pnyx.  However,  when  the  oligarchy  of  Thirty  was 
established,  after  the  capture  and  subjugation  of  Athens,  Plato 
was  not  only  relieved  from  the  necessity  of  addressing  the 
assembled  people,  but  also  obtained  additional  facilities  for  rising 
into  political  influence  through  Kritias  (his  near  relative)  and 
Charmides,  leading  men  among  the  new  oligarchy.  Plato 
affirms  that  he  had  always  disapproved  of  the  antecedent  demo- 
cracy, and  that  he  entered  on  the  new  scheme  of  government 
with  the  full  hope  of  seeing  justice  and  wisdom  predominant. 
He  was  soon  undeceived.  The  government  of  the  Thirty  proved 
a  sanguinary  and  rapacious  tyranny,  tilling  him  with  disappoint- 
ment and  disgust.  He  was  especially  revolted  by  their  treat- 
ment of  Socrates,  whom  they  not  only  interdicted  from  continuing 
his  habitual  colloquy  with  young  men,  but  even  tried  to  impli- 
cate in  nefarious  murders,  by  ordering  him,  along  with  others, 
to  arrest  Leon  the  Salaminian,  one  of  their  intended  viciimi? — an 
order  which  Socrates  at  the  peril  of  his  life  disobeyed.     Thus 


philosophy:  plato.  471 

mortified  and  disappointed,  Plato  withdrew  from  public  functions. 
,  .  .  His  repugnance  was  aggravated  to  the  highest  pitch  ol 
grief  and  indignation  by  the  trial  and  condemnation  of  Socrates 
(399  B.C.)  four  years  after  the  renewal  of  the  democracy."^ 

After  the  death  of  Socrates,  Plato  commenced  his  travels  by 
going  to  Megara,  where  he  associated  with  Euclides,  one  of  the 
followers  of  Socrates,  and  where  also  he  probably  met  Hermo- 
genes,  one  of  the  Eleatic  school.  How  long  a  time  he  spent  at 
Megara  is  unknown,  but  from  Megara  he  went  to  Cyrene  on  a 
visit  to  the  mathematician  Theodoras,  whom  he  probably  had 
known  at  Athens,  for  in  the  Thecetetns  Plato  represents  Theo- 
dorus  as  conversing  with  Socrates.  From  Cyrene  he  went  to 
Egypt.  It  has  been  disputed  that  Plato  ever  really  visited 
Egypt.  Our  earliest  authority  for  the  visit  is  Cicero ;  ^  and 
although  Plato's  works  contain  nothing  which  necessitates  the 
belief  that  he  did  visit  Egypt,  there  is  nothing  improbable  in 
his  being  tempted  when  in  Cyrene  to  extend  his  travels  to  the 
Nile.  He  next  visited  the  South  of  Italy,  where  he  is  said  at 
Tarentum  to  have  met  Archytas,  and  at  Locri  Timseus,  and  to 
have  purchased  the  works  of  Philolaus  at  the  high  price  of  a 
hundred  minse.  From  Italy  he  went  to  Sicily,  where  in  Syra- 
cuse he  was  introduced  by  Dion  to  the  elder  Dionysius,  brother- 
in-law  of  Dion  and  tyrant  of  Syracuse.  But  Plato  eventually 
offended  the  tyrant,  who  spared  his  life  indeed  at  the  request  of 
Dion,  but  handed  him  over  to  Pollis,  the  Spartan  ambassador, 
who  sold  him  as  a  slave  in  ^gina,  whence  the  Athenians  had 
been  driven  out,  and  where  they  were  especially  detested.  He 
was,  however,  set  at  liberty  by  Anniceris,  whom  he  had  known 
at  Cyrene,  and  who  purchased  him  for  twenty  or  thirty  minse, — a 
price  which  contrasts  suspiciously,  or,  if  it  be  true,  instructively 
■with  the  price  paid  by  Plato  for  the  works  of  Philolaus. 

Thus  Plato  returned  to  Athens  about  ac.  387  or  386  ;  and, 
on  his  return,  "  Dionysius  wrote,  hoping  that  he  would  not 
speak  ill  of  him.  Plato  contemptuously  replied  that  he  had 
not  leisure  to  think  of  Dionysius."  ^  He  was  more  profitably 
employed  in  philosophy.  He  bought  a  house  and  garden  close 
to  the  precinct  of  the  hero  Academus,  which  contained  walks 
and  a  gymnasium,  and  was  known  as  the  Academia.  Hither 
men  from  all  quarters  of  the  Greek  world  came  to  listen  to  his 
discourses  and  to  discourse  with  him.  But,  as  in  his  travels, 
he  was  a  contrast  to  his  great  master,  who  never  left  Greece 


1  Gvoie'a  Plato,  i.  118-120. 
*  De  Fin.  v.  29  ;  De  Bepub.  i.  10.  s  Lewea,  i.  205. 


472  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

and  only  once  left  Athens,  so  in  his  mode  of  teaching  he 
differed  from  him.  Socrates  conversed  in  the  streets  and  the 
market-place  with  any  one  and  every  one.  Plato  discoursed  in 
the  Academy,  a  mile  from  Athens,  to  a  small  number  only. 
He  did  not  indeed  demand  fees,  but  he  accepted  presents ;  and, 
if  payment  was  not  required  for  permission  to  hear  his  dis- 
courses, other  conditions  were  probably  exacted  for  admission. 
Here,  for  some  ten  years,  Plato  continued  to  teach  philosophy, 
until  he  went,  the  elder  Dionysius  being  dead,  to  Sicily  for 
a  second  time,  in  B.C.  367,  on  the  invitation  of  Dion.  The 
object  of  his  visit  was  that  he  might  exert  his  influence  over 
the  younger  Dionysius,  who  had  succeeded  to  the  tyranny  of 
Syracuse,  and  produce  a  philosopher-king.  But  Dionysius 
exiled  Dion,  and  Plato  had  much  ado  to  return  to  Athens. 
Some  years  later,  when  he  was  sixty-nine  years  of  age,  Plato 
voyaged  a  third  time  to  Sicily,  in  the  hope  of  reconciling  Dion 
and  Dionysius ;  but  the  attempt  failed,  and  it  was  fortunate 
that  Plato  succeeded  in  returning  once  more  to  Athens.  Of 
the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  we  know  nothing.  He  died  at 
the  age  of  eighty  in  b.c.  346,  bequeathing  his  house  and  garden 
at  the  Academia  to  his  nephew  Speusippus,  and  to  the  Academy 
an  undying  name. 

The  life  of  Plato  is,  it  must  be  confessed,  less  instructive  and 
more  disappointing  than  that  of  any  other  great  Greek  author. 
The  fact  that  it  throws  little  light  on  his  intellectual  develop- 
ment may  be  in  part  at  least  due  to  defective  tradition  ;  what 
we  know  of  his  life  is  little  and  lacks  the  best  evidence.  This 
may  also  account  for  there  being  nothing  in  his  life,  as  we 
know  it,  which  at  all  corresponds  to  or  explains  his  charm  as  a 
man  of  letters.  It  may  also  account  for  the  anecdotes,  which 
in  late  times  became  numerous,  and  which  represent  Plato  in  a 
very  unfavourable  light.  In  the  absence  of  facts,  fictions  were 
invented,  and  their  unfavourable  character,  if  it  had  no  basis 
in  fact,  must  be  ascribed  to  the  heated  feelings  of  partisanship 
in  philosophy.  But  defective  tradition  will  not  account  for  the 
fact  that,  however  nobly  Plato  wrote,  he  did  nothing,  as  far  as 
we  know,  great  or  noble  ;  and  it  seems  probable  that,  if  his 
life  had  impressed  his  contemporaries  as  being  as  exalted  as 
his  philosophy,  or  as  charming  as  his  literary  style,  succeeding 
generations  would,  in  his  case,  as  in  others,  have  invented  anec- 
dotes, in  default  of  facts,  to  give  pointed  expression  to  the 
general  love  and  respect  for  him.  Anecdotes  and  fictions  of 
various  kinds  were  indeed  invented,  but  they  were  either 
malevolent,  or  else  silly  inventions  of  weak  minds,  which  could 


philosophy:  plato.  473 

only  express  their  admiration  for  his  philosophy  by  feigning 
that  his  father  was  a  god  and  his  mother  a  virgin. 

How  different  the  impression  made  by  his  philosophy  and  by 
his  life  is  may  be  seen  from  what  Goethe  says  of  the  former  : 
"  Plato's  relation  to  the  world  is  that  of  a  superior  spirit, 
whose  good  pleasure  it  is  to  dwell  in  it  for  a  time.  It  is  not 
BO  much  his  concern  to  become  acquainted  with  it — for  the 
world  and  its  nature  are  things  which  he  presupposes  —  as 
kindly  to  communicate  to  it  that  which  he  brings  with  him, 
and  of  which  it  stands  in  so  great  need.  He  penetrates  into 
its  depths  more  that  he  may  replenish  them  from  the  fulness 
of  his  own  nature  than  that  he  may  fathom  their  mysteries. 
He  scales  its  heights  as  one  yearning  after  renewed  participa- 
tion in  the  source  of  his  being.  All  that  he  utters  has  reference 
to  something  eternally  complete,  good,  true,  beautiful,  whose 
furtherance  he  strives  to  promote  in  every  bosom."  ^  With  this 
divine  spirit  Plato  yet  was  neither  patriotic  as  Demosthenes, 
nor  amiable  as  Sophocles.  Philosophy  has  indeed  gained 
more  than  Athenian  politics  lost ;  but  whether  the  gain  to 
philosophy  is  gain  to  the  world  we  may  doubt  when  we  reflect 
that  Socrates,  though  great  as  a  philosopher,  was  greater  as  a  man. 
The  reasons  why  Plato  withdrew  from  political  life  are  tolerably 
evident.  By  birth  and  education  he  was  at  discord  with  de- 
mocracy, while  experience  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants  had  shown 
him  the  base  aspect  of  oligarchy.  Plato,  therefore,  withdrew 
from  political  life.  Socrates,  we  may  remark,  discharged  his 
duties  as  a  citizen  regardless  of  democracy  or  oligarchy,  and  did 
what  was  right  undaunted  by  either.  The  temperament  of 
Plato,  however,  even  as  shown  in  his  philosophy,  was  unfitted 
for  practical  life.  For  practical  life  some  steady  and  abiding 
convictions  are  necessary.  Plato  had  none  even  in  his  philo- 
sophy. Anything  which  he  affirms  in  one  dialogue  may  be 
found  to  be  refuted  by  him  in  another.  This  was  partly  due 
to  the  infancy  of  philosophy.  Plato  "  is  the  poet  or  maker  of 
ideas,  satisfying  the  wants  of  his  own  age,  providing  the  in- 
struments of  thought  for  future  generations.  He  is  no  dreamer, 
but  a  great  philosophical  genius  struggling  with  the  unequal 
conditions  of  light  and  knowledge  under  which  he  is  living."  ^ 
But  the  conditions  are  not  wholly  responsible  for  the  shifting 
ground  of  Plato's  philosophy.  Aristotle  found  firm  ground  ; 
and  if  Plato  continually  changed  his  premisses  in  order  to  see 
what  conclusions   would  be  the  consequence,  we  must  ascribe 

*  Quoted  in  Ueberweg's  Hist,  of  Philos.  i.  103  (Morris's  Engliah  trans.) 
^  Prof.  Jowett,  Dialojjues  of  Flato,  I.  ix. 


474  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

tliis  continual  change,  in  part  at  least,  to  the  temperament  of  the 
individual  philosopher,  as  well  as  to  the  condition  of  philo- 
sophy at  the  time.  "  Plato  was  not  wanting  in  dogmatic  im- 
pulse, but  he  was  unable  to  patiently  think  out  a  system  ;  and 
the  vacillating  lights  which  shifted  constantly  before  him,  the 
very  scepticism  which  gave  such  dramatic  flexibility  to  his 
genius,  made  him  aware  that  any  affirmation  he  could  make 
was  liable  to  be  perplexed  by  cross-lights,  or  would  admit  of 
unanswerable  objections."  ^ 

Setting  aside  the  Letters  of  Plato,  the  authenticity  of  which 
is  doubtful,  his  works  consist  of  Dialogues,  except  the  Apology 
and  the  Menexenus,  which  are  speeches.  The  first  question, 
then,  which  we  have  to  consider  is,  why  did  Plato  cast  his 
philosophical  work  into  the  form  of  dialogues  1  For  this  there 
seem  to  be  several  reasons.  The  most  obvious  answer  to  our 
question  is  afforded  by  the  fact  that  in  all  the  Dialogues  Soc- 
rates is  the  central  and  most  important  figure.  Plato  himself 
never  figures  in  any  of  the  Dialogues,  and  is  only  even  referred 
to  twice.  Obviously,  therefore,  it  is  Socrates  and  his  philosophy 
— as  Plato  conceived  it — which  he  set  himself  to  work  to  re- 
produce ;  and  as  Socrates  never  expounded  his  philosophy,  but 
confined  himself  to  questioning  others,  professing  that  he  him- 
self knew  nothing,  Plato,  in  giving  even  an  idealised  picture  of 
Socrates,  was  compelled,  as  much  as  was  Xenophon,  to  adhere  to 
historical  truth,  at  least  so  far  as  to  represent  Socrates  as  con- 
versing, and  thus  was  compelled  to  write  dialogues.  In  the 
next  place,  the  form  of  dialogue  was  essentially  appropriate  to 
Plato's  philosophy,  since  Plato  was  rather  searching  for  truth 
than  expounding  a  system.  In  the  third  place,  Plato  was 
conscious  of  the  inferiority  of  books  to  the  living  word  for  the 
investigation  of  truth.  The  reader  of  a  book  has  to  make  the 
best  of  it  that  he  can,  and  often  is  in  a  difficulty  which  a  simple 
question  addressed  to  the  writer  would  solve.  It  is  impossible  to 
argue  with  a  book  ;  and  a  matter  is  rarely  fully  understood  by  any 
one  until  he  has  argued  it  out.  To  remedy  this  defect,  inherent 
in  the  communication  of  ideas  by  means  of  a  book,  Plato  seems 
to  have  resolved  to  throw  his  philosophy  into  dialogue  form,  and 
thus  argue  out  every  question  from  as  many  points  of  view  as 
possible  or  necessary.  Again,  whether  Plato  intended  to  derive 
any  advantage  for  the  views  he  put  forward  from  the  likes  and 
dislikes  of  his  readers  or  not,  it  is  a  fact  that  by  the  way  in 
•which  he  sketches  the  characters  in  his  Dialogues,  he  enlists  our 
sympathies  for  Socrates  and  very  decidedly  against  his  opponents. 
^  Lewes,  L  322. 


philosophy:  plato.  475 

This  leads  us  to  the  last  reason  which  we  shall  assign  for  tho 
dialogue  form  of  Plato's  works.  It  is  that  Plato  was  an  artist. 
He  wrote  philosophy  and  he  also  wrote  literature.  He  had  a 
keen  perception  for  character,  and  a  satirical  power  as  great  as 
that  of  Archilochus.  As  an  artist,  therefore,  he  was  naturally 
led  to  select  the  most  artistic  form  for  his  work  provided  by 
literature  ;  and  dialogue  had  the  same  advantages  over  other 
existing  forms  of  prose  as  the  drama  had  over  other  forms  of 
poetry. 

We  have  compared  the  position  of  dialogue  in  prose  to  that 
of  the  drama  in  poetry,  and  the  comparison  is  not  merely  a 
superficial  one,  as  we  shall  see  if  we  consider  what  antecedents 
dialogue,  as  written  by  Plato,  had,  and  what  place  dialogue  takes 
in  the  history  of  Greek  literature.  We  not  only  find  it  said 
several  times  by  ancient  authors  that  Plato  had  the  greatest 
affection  for  the  Mimes  of  Sophron,  and  that  it  was  he  who  first 
brought  them  from  Sicily  to  Athens,  but  we  find  that  Aristotle 
classes  the  Mimes  of  Sophron  and  the  Dialogues  of  Plato 
together  as  belonging  essentially  to  the  same  branch  of  literature. 
The  excellence  of  Sophron's  Mimes  consisted  in  the  success  with 
which  he  depicted  character  ;  and  we  may  form  some  idea  at 
second-hand  of  his  power  in  this  line  from  the  Adoniazusoe  of 
Theocritus,  which  is  taken  from  one  of  the  Mimes.  It  is,  then, 
in  this  power  of  depicting  character  amusingly  that  the  resem- 
blance between  Plato's  Dialogues  and  Sophron's  prose  Mimes, 
we  can  hardly  doubt,  existed.  Thus  the  comparison  of  the 
Dialogues  with  the  drama  is  not  merely  the  superficial  resem- 
blance consisting  in  the  fact  that  there  are  interlocutors  in  each 
of  these  forms  of  literature,  but  is  based  on  a  similarity  of  aim 
in  both,  and  on  a  similarity  in  the  artistic  means  by  which  that 
aim  is  effected. 

In  the  next  place,  if  we  compare  the  development  of  prose 
and  poetry  in  Greek  literature,  we  shall  see  that  the  two  forms 
ran  parallel,  and  that  dialogue  occupies  in  the  one  the  place  of 
the  drama  in  the  other.  The  first  form  which  poetry  took  in 
Greek  literature  was  that  of  epic,  which  is  essentially  narrative 
in  character.  The  next  was  lyric,  which  is  individual  and  sub- 
jective. Finally,  there  arose  the  drama,  which  united  the  spirit 
of  both  in  a  form  of  its  own.  So  too  in  prose,  the  first  form 
which  literature  took  was  that  of  history,  which,  like  epic  poetry, 
is  essentially  narrative  in  character.  The  next  form  was  oratory, 
which  is  individual,  and  is  expressive  of  the  speaker's  own  views. 
Finally,  there  arose  dialogue,  which  united  the  narrative  of  history 
with  the  subjectivity  of  oratory  in  a  vivid  and  dramatic  form  of 


4/6  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

its  own.  Dialogue  has  over  the  other  forms  of  prose  the  same 
advantages  as  drama  over  other  forms  of  poetry  :  it  possesses  a 
greater  multiplicity  of  elements,  a  greater  variety  of  effects,  and 
a  greater  wealth  of  resources.  Let  us  therefore  see  what  light 
is  thrown  on  Plato's  style  when  it  is  viewed  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  development  of  Greek  prose,  and  as  the  highest 
level  attained  by  Greek  prose.  If  the  Dialogues  of  Alexamenus 
of  Teos,  who  wrote  before  Plato,  had  been  preserved,  it  would 
have  been  possible  for  us  to  discuss  the  characteristics  of 
dialogue  generally  as  a  form  of  Greek  prose ;  but  as  they  are 
lost,  Greek  dialogue  is  for  us  Plato. 

Under  the  head  of  style  are  comprised  three  things  at  least : 
the  choice  and  range  of  words  over  which  the  writer  has  com- 
mand, that  is  to  say,  diction ;  the  structure  of  his  sentences, 
which  differs  in  complexity,  regularity,  and  clearness,  not  only 
in  different  writers  according  to  their  individual  capacities,  but 
is  also  affected  by  the  nature  of  the  subject  on  which  the  author 
is  writing ;  and,  finally,  the  rhythm  of  the  period,  which  may 
flow  harmoniously  or  may  offend  the  ear,  and  which  is  aided  by 
the  subtle  repetition  of  such  sounds  as  are  pleasing,  or  by  the 
harmonious  blending  of  contrasted  sound.  Now  in  all  three 
points  the  style  of  Plato  is  neither  that  of  the  historians  nor 
tliat  of  the  orators,  but  a  union  of  the  two.  The  difference 
between  the  historian  and  the  orator  in  point  of  style  is  most 
obvious  in  the  structure  of  their  sentences.  The  full  and  well- 
rounded  periods  of  the  orator  are  much  longer,  more  full  of 
subordinate  clauses,  and  more  impressive  in  their  effect  than 
are  the  simple  sentences  in  which  the  historian  tells  his  tale. 
It  is  only  necessary  to  compare  the  artless  conversational  tone 
of  Herodotus  with  the  sounding  periods  of  Demosthenes'  orations 
to  perceive  the  difference.  Each  style  has  its  charm,  but  each 
runs  the  danger  of  monotony.  Herodotus,  however,  is  preserved 
by  his  complete  freedom  from  artificiality  and  by  the  natural 
beauty  of  his  style.  Demosthenes  was  aware  of  the  danger  he 
ran,  and  to  avoid  it  he  deliberately  introduces  sentences  irregular 
in  their  construction — anacolutha— which  may  relieve  the  regular 
succession  of  elaborate  periods.  Plato  commits  himself  to  neither 
style,  but  blends  the  two.  Irregularly  constructed  sentences  are 
too  frequent  in  his  writing  to  be  suspected  of  being  introduced 
as  artificial  foils,  while  there  is  a  tinge  of  oratory  throughout 
which  lifts  him  above  the  merely  conversational  style.  This 
happy  blending  of  the  essence  of  both  styles  characterises  his 
writing  throughout.  Setting  aside  such  pieces  of  work  as  the 
Menexenus,  which  is  of  deliberate  design  oratorical,  we  may  say 


PHILOSOPHY  :    PLATO.  477 

that  it  is  not  true  that  Plato  is  conversational  in  some  parts  of 
a  dialogue  and  oratorical  in  others.  Even  when  he  passes  from 
dialogue  to  a  long  speech  by  one  of  the  characters,  he  does  not 
drop  the  conversational  and  assume  the  oratorical  style,  but  he 
retains  the  same  structure  of  sentence,  the  same  happy  mean 
between  the  two  styles,  as  elsewhere. 

In  rhythm  Plato  unites  the  excellences  of  historical  and 
philosophical  prose  as  in  the  structure  of  his  sentences.  He 
neither  writes  regardless  of  rhythm,  leaving  it  to  chance  whe- 
ther the  sentence  happens  to  be  pleasing  in  sound,  nor  does 
he  rush  into  the  opposite  extreme  of  producing  sentences  which, 
like  those  of  Isocrates,  balance  each  other  clause  for  clause  and 
word  for  word.  Hiatus,  which  was  especially  abhorred  by  Iso- 
crates, Plato  admits  less  freely  than  do  the  historians,  but  more 
freely  than  do  the  orators.  What  is  true  of  the  rhythm  and 
the  structure  of  Plato's  sentences  is  also  true  of  his  diction  ;  he 
neither  limits  himself  to  the  vocabulary  of  ordinary  conversa- 
tion, nor  does  he  concern  himself  to  avoid  it.  But  diction  is  a 
particularly  sensitive  element  in  style ;  it  is  affected  not  only  by 
the  rhythm  and  the  structural  necessities  of  a  sentence,  which 
perpetually  determine  whether  this  or  that  of  two  words  nearly 
synonymous  is  to  be  used,  but  it  reflects  the  mood  of  the  writer, 
is  exalted  when  he  is  exalted,  precise  when  his  thought  is  exact, 
and  vague  when  his  ideas  are  dreamy.  Now  Plato  has  many 
moods  :  he  "  was  sceptic,  dogmatist,  religious  mystic  and  in- 
quisitor, mathematician,  philosopher,  poet  (erotic  as  well  as 
satirical),  rhetor,  artist — all  in  one,  or  at  least  all  in  succession, 
throughout  the  fifty  years  of  his  philosophical  life.  At  one 
time  his  exuberant  dialectical  impulse  claims  satisfaction,  mani- 
festing itself  in  a  string  of  ingenious  doubts  and  unsolved  con- 
tradictions ;  at  another  time  he  is  full  of  theological  antipathy 
against  those  who  libel  Helios  and  Selene,  or  who  deny  the 
universal  providence  of  the  gods ;  here  we  have  unqualified 
confessions  of  ignorance,  and  protestations  against  the  false 
persuasion  of  knowledge,  as  alike  wide-spread  and  deplorable — 
there,  we  find  a  description  of  the  process  of  building  up  the 
kosmos  from  the  beginning,  as  if  the  author  had  been  privy  to 
the  inmost  purposes  of  the  Demiurgus"  (Grote,  i.  215).  Be- 
fore, then,  we  can  complete  our  account  of  his  diction,  we  must 
proceed  to  consider  the  poetic  element  in  Plato. 

According  to  Aristotle,  whose  competence  as  a  literary  critic 
is  above  doubt,  Plato's  works  were  a  mean  between  poetry  and 
prose.  By  this  it  is  not  meant  that,  in  some  passages,  his 
diction  is  purely  poetical  and  in  others  pure  prose — although 


478  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

within  certain  limits  the  diction  of  a  passage  may  vary  in  thia 
respect  according  to  the  nature  of  the  subject-matter — but  that 
throughout  a  dialogue  Plato  unites  the  qualities  of  prose  and 
poetry,  just  as  the  structure  of  his  sentences  is  throughout  halt 
conversational,  half  oratorical.  Now  this,  which  is  the  charac- 
teristic of  Plato's  diction,  is  not  mere  accident  or  caprice,  but 
has  a  definite  connection  with  the  literary  form  into  which 
Plato  threw  his  philosophy.  That  form,  according  to  Aristotle, 
is  the  same  as  that  of  Sophron's  Mimes.  In  other  words,  the 
Dialogues  of  Plato,  although  in  point  of  matter  philosophical, 
are  works  of  the  imagination  in  the  same  way  as  were  the  Mimes 
of  Sophron.  Not  only  are  the  circumstances  and  scene  in  which 
a  dialogue  is  represented  as  taking  place  probably  due  to  Plato's 
invention,  but  the  characters  wliich  he  gives  to  the  interlocutors, 
though,  like  the  figures  in  Sophron's  Mimes,  to  a  certain  extent 
suggested  by  life,  are  in  their  artistic  shape  the  creation  of  the 
author.  But  with  the  exception  of  Sophron's  Mimes,  the  only 
works  of  the  imagination  known  to  the  Greeks  were  written  in 
poetry.  Prose  fiction  was  unknown.  It  was  then  almost  in- 
evitable that  the  first  prose  works  of  the  imagination  should 
be  influenced  to  a  considerable  extent  by  the  poetical  works  on 
which  they  were  largely  modelled  and  by  which  they  were  partly 
inspired.  In  fine,  the  style  of  Plato  is  a  union  of  prose  and 
poetry,  because  his  Dialogues  were  a  form  of  literature  uniting 
the  imaginative  qualities  of  the  drama  with  the  philosophical 
purposes  of  dialectic. 

Here  it  is  necessary  to  point  out  what  poetry  it  is  with  which 
the  Dialogues  have  points  of  community.  Obviously  it  is  with 
the  drama ;  but  the  drama  includes  tragedy  and  comedy,  and 
the  question  arises  whether  it  is  with  comedy  or  with  tragedy 
that  the  Dialogues  have  a  resemblance,  or  whether  the  resem- 
blance is  to  the  drama  generally  and  not  to  either  tragedy  or 
comedy  especially  1  The  Alexandrian  grammarians  apparently 
considered  that  the  Dialogues  were  more  like  tragedy,  for  they 
divided  them  into  trilogies.  But  in  this  they  committed  the 
error  of  allowing  the  matter,  which  is  serious,  to  influence 
them  in  deciding  as  to  the  form  of  the  Dialogues.^  The  truth 
is  indicated  to  us  by  Aristotle,  who,  in  grouping  the  Dialogues 

1  On  the  other  hand,  "the  Phaedo  is  the  tragedy  of  wliich  Socrates  is  the 
protagonist,  and  Sininiias  and  Cebes  the  secondary  performers.  No  diahigue 
has  a  greater  unity  of  subject  and  feeling.  Plato  has  certainly  fulfilled  the 
condition  of  Greek,  or  rather  of  all  art,  which  requires  that  scenes  of  death 
and  suffering  should  be  clothed  in  beauty.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  in  all 
tragedians,  ancient  or  modern,  nothing  in  jioetry  or  history  (with  oue  excep- 
tion), like  the  last  hours  of  Socrates  in  Plato  "  (Jowett,  i.  427). 


philosophy:  plato.  479 

with  the  Mimes,  which  were  a  species  of  comedy,  signifies  the 
connection  between  the- Dialogues  and  comedy.  This  is  in 
harmony  with  the  tradition  that  makes  Sopbron  and  Aristo- 
phanes the  favourite  authors  of  Plato.  Plato  attacks  the 
Sophists,  for  instance,  with  all  the  force  that  humour  can  give, 
as  Aristophanes  attacked  the  leather-sellers  and  lampmakers 
who  figured  in  the  political  Avorld.  But  Plato's  satire  has  an 
exquisite  finish  which  Aristophanes  rarely  equals.  For  instance, 
take  this  side-blow  at  the  Sophists.  It  occurs  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Protagoras.  Socrates  and  Hippocrates  were  going  to 
make  a  call  on  Callias  in  order  to  see  Protagoras,  and  Socrates, 
describing  it  afterwards,  said  :  "  We  proceeded  on  our  way  until 
we  reached  the  vestibule  of  the  house,  and  there  we  stopped 
in  order  to  conclude  a  dispute  which  had  arisen  as  we  were 
going  along;  and  we  stood  talking  in  the  vestibule  until  we 
had  finished  and  come  to  an  understanding.  And  I  think  that 
the  doorkeeper,  who  was  a  eunuch,  and  who  was  probably 
annoyed  at  the  great  inroad  of  the  Sophists,  must  have  heard 
us  talking.  At  any  rate,  when  Ave  knocked  at  the  door,  and  he 
opened  and  saw  us,  he  grumbled,  '  They  are  Sophists — he  is 
not  at  home ; '  and  instantly  gave  the  door  a  hearty  bang  with 
both  his  hands.  Again  we  knocked,  and  he  answered  without 
opening,  'Did  you  not  hear  me  say  that  he  is  not  at  home, 
fellows  1 '  '  But,  my  friend,'  I  said,  '  you  need  not  be  alarmed,  for 
we  are  not  Sophists,  and  we  are  not  come  to  see  Callias,  but  we 
want  to  see  Protagoras ;  and  I  must  request  you  to  announce 
us.'  At  last,  after  a  good  deal  of  difficulty,  the  man  was  per- 
suaded to  open  the  door."  ^  This  passage,  and  still  more  the 
way  in  which  Plato  draws  the  character  of  Thrasymachus,  the 
Sophist,  in  the  Republic,  compels  us  to  admit  the  justice  of 
Gorgias'  criticism  when  he  spoke  of  Plato  as  a  terrible  satirist 
and  as  a  new  Archilochus.  Other  conspicuous  instances  of  his 
satiric  powers  may  be  found  in  the  fine  parody  in  the  Ph(jednt8 
on  the  dithyrambic  style,  in  the  speech  of  Agathon  in  the 
Symposium  on  the  oratorical  style,  and  in  the  Me7iexenus. 

In  parodies  such  as  those  just  mentioned,  the  style  is  poetical 
or  oratorical  according  to  circumstances,  but  the  diction  of  Plate, 
except  when  he  thus  deliberately  departs  from  his  ordinary 
course,  is  a  mixture  of  prose  and  poetry  :  and  this  is  because 
the  form  of  his  Dialogues  is  a  union  of  dialogue,  employed  for 
dramatic  purposes,  and  dialectic  used  for  purposes  of  philosophy. 
The  advantages  of  this  new  form  of  composition  as  compared 
with  any  pre-existing  form  are  obvious  in  its  vivacity  and  variety. 
^  Protag.  384  (Jowett's  trans.) 


480  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

But  it  also  labours  under  defects.  "  "With  regard  to  the  dramatic 
power  exhibited,  there  has  perhaps  been  little  exaggeration  in 
the  praise  of  critics ;  but  there  has  been  an  oversight  in  regard 
to  the  sudden  cessation  of  the  dramatic  ventriloquence  (so  to 
speak),  which,  having  animated  the  mise  en  scene  of  the  characters, 
disappears  as  soon  as  the  business  of  the  dialogues  begins.  In 
the  introduction  the  characters  speak ;  in  the  argument  it  is 
Plato  who  speaks  just  what  the  needs  of  his  argument  require, 
and  the  debaters,  instead  of  debating,  assent,  inquire,  and  ex- 
pound, but  rarely  speak  dramatically."  ^  This  criticism  is  true 
of  the  Republic,  for  instance,  and  some  of  the  longer  Dialogues, 
but  by  no  means  of  all.  In  the  Protar/oras,  for  example,  the 
interlocutors  maintain  their  character  throughout.  But  the  fact 
remains  that  frequently  Plato  sinks  the  artist  in  the  philosopher, 
and,  in  order  to  make  his  writing  fill  as  satisfactorily  as 
possible  the  place  of  the  living  word,  he  loads  his  work  with 
vain  repetitions,  and  justifies  the  criticism  of  Montaigne,  who 
found  the  Dialogues  of  Plato  drag,  thought  he  stifled  his  subject 
too  much,  and  complained  "  of  the  time  spent  in  vain  inter- 
rogatories by  a  man  who  had  such  far  better  things  to  say." 

The  form  of  the  Dialogues  and  their  diction  are  intermediate 
between  prose  and  poetry ;  the  structure  and  harmony  of  the 
sentences  are  intermediate  between  those  of  oratory  and  those 
of  ordinary  conversation.  These,  then,  are  the  characteristics  of 
the  Dialogues  considered  as  a  branch  of  Greek  literature  ;  but 
we  must  also  emleavour  to  form  some  idea  of  the  literary  qualities 
of  Plato  himself.  Here,  again,  we  shall  base  our  remarks  upon 
Aristotle.  According  to  him  (Pol.  II.  iii.  3),  four  qualities 
distinguish  the  Dialogues :  elevation,  finish,  originality,  and 
the  spirit  of  inquiry.  The  first  quality,  so  far  as  it  refers 
to  style,  implies  that  the  Dialogues,  though  conversational, 
are  not  vulgar ;  that  the  structure  of  the  sentences,  though 
not  artificial,  is  not  slipshod ;  that  in  both  respects  the 
Dialogues  are  above  the  common.  As  regards  the  matter  of 
the  Dialogues,  they  are  elevated  in  tone,  and  are  marked  by 
what  Greek  critics  called  ethos,  that  is,  their  tone  is  such 
as  to  excite  to  virtue  and  turn  from  vice.  The  finish  which 
Plato's  work  shows  is  to  be  seen  in  the  polish  of  his  satire 
(Plato  impales  his  victims  "  as  though  he  loved  them  ")  ;  in  his 
exquisite  drawing  of  character  (contrast  his  Socrates  with  the 
incomplete  and  inartistic  picture  given  by  Xenophon) ;  in  the 
ease  and  grace  with  which  the  philosophical  subject  of  a  dialogue 

^  Lewes,  i.  198. 


PfflLOSOPHY:    PLATO.  48  I 

is  introduced  ;  ^  in  the  harmonious  proportions  of  such  a  dialogue 
as  the  Symposium,  with  its  Greek  purity  of  form  ;  or  in  the 
grouping  and  contrast  of  the  cliaracters  of  the  First  Book  of  tlie 
JRepuhlic.  Plato's  originality  shows  itself  alike  in  form  and 
matter.  The  Dialogues  of  Alexamenus  have  perished  so  com- 
pletely that  we  may  safely  conjecture  that  they  can  have  im- 
paired hut  little  Plato's  claim  to  have  invented  philosophical 
dialogue.  The  merit  of  this  original  service  to  mankind,  though 
great,  is  apt  to  be  overlooked.  It  gave  philosophy  as  high  a 
rank  in  literature  as  it  occupies  in  knowledge,  and  it  gave  to 
philosophical  discussion  a  literary  interest  serviceable  alike  to 
philosophy  and  to  literature.  The  same  creative  power  shows 
itself  elsewhere  in  the  additions  which  Plato  made  both  to  the 
technical  phraseology  of  metaphysics  and  to  the  general  voca- 
bulary of  the  Greek  language.  As  regards  the  matter  of  his 
works,  Plato's  originality  consists  not  so  much  in  any  positive 
addition  of  permanent  value  that  he  made  to  the  sum  of  human 
knowledge,  as  in  the  fact  that  he  was  "  a  maker  of  ideas  "  and 
provided  "the  instruments  of  thought  for  future  generations." 

The  fourth  quality  ascribed  to  Plato  by  Aristotle,  the  spirit 
of  inquiry,  is  one  exhibited  in  the  matter  of  the  DialogTies, 
though  their  form  was  appropriate  to  it,  and  was  doubtless 
partly  determined  by  it.  The  spirit  which  examines  all  things 
and  investigates  each  thing  from  every  point  of  view ;  which  is 
dissatisfied,  not  with  negative  results,  but  only  if  it  lea\es  any 
argument  or  any  method  of  search  untouched — this  is  Plato's 
spirit  of  inquiry,  and  is  a  mode  of  philosophy  for  which,  employ- 
ing, or  rather  consisting  of,  dialectic,  as  it  does,  dialogue  is  the 
appropriate  form.  The  Dialogues  of  Plato  were  divided  by 
Thrasyllus,  a  rhetorician  of  the  time  of  Tiberius,  into  two  classes, 
dialogues  of  search  and  expository  dialogues.  These  classes 
fail  to  include  all  the  dialogues,  but  of  those  which  properly 
belong  to  tJiem,  the  majority,  according  to  Mr.  Grote,  come 
under  the  head  of  dialogues  of  sea.'oh.  This,  however,  is  a 
matter  to  be  decided  by  philosophers,  and  cannot  properly  be 
here  discussed.  Nor  is  it  necessary  here  to  more  than  mention 
the  fact  that  Schleiermacher  arranged  all  the  dialogues  in 
accordance  with  a  philosophic  scheme  which  he  imagines  that 
Plato  conceived  in  his  youth,  and  devoted  his  life  to  working 
out.     This  hypothesis  is  improbable,  incapable  of  proof  (it  pro- 

^  The  art  of  concealing  art  "is  nowhere  more  perfect  than  in  those  writings 
of  Plato  which  describe  the  trial  and  death  of  Socrates.  Their  charm  is  their 
simplicity,  which  gives  them  verisimilitude  ;  and  yet  they  touch,  as  if  inci- 
dentally, and  because  they  were  suitable  to  the  occasion,  on  some  of  the 
deepest  truths  of  philosophy  "  (Jowett,  i,  427). 

2  n 


482  mSTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

ceeds  on  internal  and  subjective  grounds),  and  is  rejected  by 
other  students  of  Plato,  who  bring  forward  each  a  scheme  of 
his  own.  Another  theory,  equally  subjective,  but  more  gene- 
rally intelligible,  is  that  of  Munk,  who  conceives  that  Plato 
intended  in  the  Dialogues  "  to  depict  the  life  and  working  of  a 
philosopher,  in  successive  dramatic  exhibitions,  from  youth  to 
old  age.  The  different  moments  in  the  life  of  Socrates,  indi- 
cated in  each  dialogue,  mark  the  place  which  Plato  intended  it 
to  occupy  in  the  series"  (Grote,  i.  181).  But  with  the  classi- 
fications based  on  philosophical  grounds  we  have  nothing  to  da 
External  proof  as  to  the  date  of  composition  does  not  exist  in 
the  case  of  a  single  dialogue ;  and  the  historical  events  men- 
tioned in  a  dialogue  give  us  no  information,  as  sometimes  the 
same  dialogue  is  represented  in  one  passage  as  having  been  held 
in  one  year,  and  in  another  passage  as  having  been  held  at  a 
wholly  different  time.  So  far  as  the  purely  literary  study  of 
the  Dialogues  throws  any  light  on  their  relative  order,  we  may 
notice  that  in  some  dialogues  Plato  is  at  pains  to  avoid  hiatus, 
in  others  not ;  and  that  in  the  Laics,  which,  on  other  grounds, 
are  generally  admitted  to  be  amongst  the  latest  of  Plato's  works, 
the  hiatus  is  most  carefully  avoided.  Other  dialogues  which 
show  the  same  avoidance  of  hiatus,  and  are  therefore  probably 
among  the  later  works,  are  the  Philebus,  Timceics,  Gritias, 
Sophistes,  Politiciis,  and  Phcedrus.^ 

Finally,  we  must  speak  briefly  of  the  question  as  to  the 
authenticity  of  the  works  that  go  under  Plato's  name.  In  the 
reign  of  Tiberius,  Thrasyllus  drew  up  a  list  of  the  works  which, 
according  to  him,  were  universally  regarded  as  genuine  in  anti- 
quity. This  list  may  be  identical  with  that  of  the  works 
recognised  as  genuine  in  the  library  at  Alexandria,  and  the 
library  list  may  have  been  obtained  from  the  Platonic  school  at 
the  Academy.  But  although  an  authentic  canon  may  have 
been  thus  transmitted  to  the  time  of  Thrasyllus,  it  is  more 
likely  that  spurious  works  came  to  be  regarded  as  genuine,  and 
were  incorporated  in  the  list  of  Thrasyllus.  This  probability 
is  considerably  strengthened  when  we  find  that  even  Thrasyllus 
himself  doubts  the  genuineness  of  one  of  the  works  included  in 
his  list.  But  if  we  reject  the  list  of  Thrasyllus,  the  question 
remains,  what  works  of  those  ascribed  to  Plato  are  genuine  t 
and  no  completely  satisfactory  answer  is  forthcoming.    Aristotle 

1  It  should  perhaps  be  stated  that  Thrasyllus  arranged  the  Dialogues  in 
groups  of  four,  which  he  called  Tetralogies,  and  that  Aristophanes  of  Byzan- 
tium (the  librarian  of  Alexandria,  who  lived  between  260-184  B.C. )  is  said 
by  Diogenes  Laertius  to  have  arranged  them  into  Trilogies.  But  both 
arrangements  were  purely  fanciful. 


philosophy:  plato.  483 

mentions  many  of  Plato's  works,  and  those  which  he  mentions 
may  safely  be  regarded  as  genuine.  But  he  does  not  mention 
all,  and  we  cannot  infer  anything  from  his  silence.  He  never 
expressly  mentions  the  Protagoras,  yet  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
Protagoras  is  genuine.  Again,  he  sometimes  mentions  or  quotes 
from  some  of  the  dialogues  that  we  possess,  but  does  not  ex- 
pressly say  that  they  are  the  work  of  Plato  :  these  dialogues, 
then,  may  or  may  not  be  genuine.  They  may  contain  the 
teaching  of  Plato,  and  be  the  work  of  some  members  of  the 
Platonic  school.  Finally,  there  are  some  dialogues  which,  both 
in  antiquity  and  in  modern  times,  have  been  universally  re- 
jected. Such  are  the  Axiochiis,  Demodocus,  Sisyphus,  Eryxias, 
Halcyon,  Midon,  Phceaces,  Chelidon,  Hehdome,  and  Epimenides. 
Dialogues  which  may  or  may  not  be  genuine  are  the  Lesser  Hip- 
pias.  First  Alcihiades,  and  the  Menexenus.  The  Letters,  although 
defended  by  Grote,  are  rejected  by  every  one  else.  They  con- 
tain gross  historical  errors  and  many  plagiarisms. 


484  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITER ATURR 


CONCLUSION. 

The  history  of  Greek  literature  is  the  proper  introduction  to 
the  study  of  literature  in  general,  not  merely  because  of  the 
excellence  of  Greek  literature  in  itself,  and  because  it  has 
influenced  both  directly  and  indirectly  all  subsequent  Euro- 
pean literatures,  but  because  the  causes  which  determine  the 
development  of  literature  in  Greece  are  more  easily  discernible 
and  more  obvious  in  their  operation  than  is  the  case  in  any 
other  country.  If  many  a  village  Hampden,  because  his  lot 
forbids,  withstands  no  greater  foe  than  "  the  little  tyrant  of 
his  fields,"  many  a  Milton  also  remains  mute  and  inglorious, 
or,  if  he  finds  a  voice,  achieves  glory  in  some  other  branch  of 
literature  than  epic  poetry.  Of  all  men  of  genius,  the  man  of 
letters  might  seem  to  be  the  least  fettered  by  external  condi- 
tions. The  range  of  thought  is  limited  neither  by  time  nor 
space.  It  is  the  peculiar  power  of  the  imagination  to  transport 
us  out  of  the  age  and  country,  nay,  out  of  the  very  world  to 
•which  we  belong.  Given  the  poAver,  which  genius  possesses, 
of  expressing  his  thought  or  fancy,  the  poet  might  seem  to  be 
beyond  any  control  save  his  own,  and  consequently  produce 
any  kind  of  poetry  in  any  age  or  in  any  country.  Yet,  even 
here,  where  the  mind  of  man  has  a  freedom  to  which  it  is  hard 
to  conceive  limits,  law  and  order  rule. 

When  a  cannon  is  levelled  horizontally,  the  shot,  whether 
gently  dropped  from  the  muzzle  or  discharged  with  the  full 
force  of  the  most  powerful  explosive,  takes  precisely  the  same 
time  to  reach  the  ground.  Gravity,  according  to  its  law,  acts 
no  more  and  no  less  on  the  rushing  shot  than  on  the  shot  which 
is  dropped  from  the  cannon's  mouth.  So,  too,  however  far 
thought  or  the  imagination  is  projected,  it  never  escapes  beyond 
the  bounds  of  its  laws.  Land  and  language,  race  and  place,  the 
community  to  which  the  author  addresses  himself  and  for  whose 
approbation  he  looks,  the  means  by  which  he  addresses  it,  the 
literature  which  existed  before  him — all  these  things  help  to 
determine  the  direction  which  genius  takes ;  and  the  operation 
of  these  and  other  causes  on  the  literary  genius  of  a  nation  con- 
stitutes the  history  of  its  literature.  But  the  more  complex 
civilisation  grows,  and  the  longer  the  past  which  any  generation 
is  heir  to,  the  more  difficult  it  is  to  distinguish  the  causes  which 


CONCLUSION.  485 

substautially  affect  the  evolution  of  literature  from  those  which 
do  not.  It  is,  therefore,  an  advantage  to  study  a  literature  in 
which  the  factors  of  the  problem  are  simpler  and  less  obscured ; 
and  such  a  literature  is  that  of  Greece  in  classical  times.  The 
course  of  Greek  literature  did  not  suffer  perturbations  from 
the  influence  of  anj^  other  nation's  literature  ;  the  civilisation 
of  Greece  was  in  the  main  its  own.  It  is  to  Greece  and  to 
Greek  literature  alone  that  we  must  look  for  the  causes  which 
determined  its  nature  and  regulated  its  development. 

First  among  these  causes  we  will  consider  the  country  in 
which  the  Greeks  lived.  The  effects  of  the  physical  conditions 
of  a  land  on  its  inhabitants  did  not  escape  the  Greeks'  fine  sense 
of  observation.  Kot  only  did  men  of  science  like  the  physi- 
cian Hippocrates  systematically  work  out  the  effects  of  the 
physical  environment  on  the  organism  of  the  nation,  not  only 
did  philosophers  like  Plato  take  into  account  the  surroundings 
of  youth  as  a  factor  in  education,  but  Herodotus  calls  special 
attention  to  the  effect  of  favourable  physical  conditions  on  the 
colonies  in  Asia  Minor.  And  the  exhilarating  influence  of  the 
atmosphere  of  Athens,  the  depressing  influence  of  the  heavy  air 
of  Boeotia  on  the  inhabitants  of  the  two  countries,  were  a  com- 
mon-place among  the  dramatic  poets.  The  physical  character 
of  a  country  acts  on  literature  directly  and  indirectly  :  directly 
by  its  beauty,  which  is  reflected  in  the  literature  ;  indirectly  by 
its  influence  on  the  social,  political,  and  moral  development 
of  the  community  to  which  the  author  belongs.  The  direct 
influence  of  nature  on  Greek  poets  has  been  sometimes  over- 
looked and  sometimes  denied.  But  the  sense  of  beauty  which 
the  Greeks  possessed  to  a  greater  extent  than  any  other  people 
could  not  fail  to  be  caught  by  the  exceptionally  beautiful 
natural  surroundings  in  which  they  hved  ;  and  their  literature, 
at  any  rate  their  poetry,  bears  abundant  testimony  to  the  fact. 
Small  though  Greece  is,  it  contains  a  greater  variety,  both  in 
harmony  and  contrast,  of  natural  beauty  than  most  countries, 
however  great.  Its  latitude  gives  it  a  southern  cHmate,  while 
its  mountains  allow  of  the  growth  of  a  vegetation  found  in 
more  northern  climes.  Within  a  short  space  occur  all  the 
degrees  of  transition  from  snow-topped  hills  to  vine-clad  foun- 
tains. And  the  joy  with  which  the  beauty  of  their  country 
filled  the  Greeks  may  be  traced  through  all  their  poetry.  In 
Homer  we  need  only  refer  to  the  descriptions  of  the  garden  of 
Alcinoiis  and  the  cave  of  Calypso,  and  the  similes  drawn  from 
nature  throughout.  In  the  lyric  poetry,  whether  of  Sappho 
or  of  Aicman,  we  find  a  sympathy  with  nature,  animate  and 


486  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

inanimate,  and  a  power  of  expressing  that  sympathy,  which  ia 
not  surpassed  in  modern  literature.  In  tragedy,  what  need  to 
refer  to  Sophocles'  description  of  his  native  Colonus  ?  in  comedy, 
to  the  Birds  of  Aristophanes  1  The  attitude  of  the  Greek  to 
nature  was  not  that  of  modern  times  ;  the  contrast  between 
nature  and  the  corruptions  of  civilisation  only  came  into  litera- 
ture when  civilisation  had  become  corrupt.  The  classical  Greek 
did  not  regard  himself  as  something  apart  from  nature,  but 
appeals  to  her  as  Prometheus  appeals,  or  took  leave  of  her  as 
Ajax  bids  farewell — as  one  of  her  children. 

The  two  leading  facts  in  the  physical  aspect  of  Greece  are 
the  sea  and  the  mountains.  As  Europe  is  the  most  indented 
and  has  relatively  the  longest  coast-line  of  all  the  continents  of 
the  world,  so  of  all  the  countries  of  Europe  the  land  of  Greece 
is  the  most  interpenetrated  with  arms  of  the  sea.  We  have 
now  to  consider  how  these  distinctive  features  acted  indirectly 
on  Greek  literature  tlirough  their  effects  on  the  moral,  political, 
and  social  condition  of  the  Greek  people. 

*•  Two  voices  are  there  :  one  is  of  the  Sea, 
One  of  the  Mountains  ;  each  a  mighty  voice  J 
In  both  from  age  to  age  thou  didst  rejoice  } 
They  were  thy  chosen  music,  Liberty  ! " 

Both  voices  spoke  impressively  to  Greece,  and  her  literature 
echoes  their  tones.  So  long  as  Greece  was  free  and  the  spirit 
of  freedom  animated  the  Greeks,  so  long  their  literature  was 
creative  and  genius  marked  it.  When  liberty  perished,  litera- 
ture declined.  The  field  of  Chseronea  was  fatal  alike  to  the 
political  liberty  and  to  the  literature  of  Greece. 

The  love  of  liberty  was  indeed  pushed  even  to  an  extreme 
in  Greece ;  and  this  also  was  due  to  the  physical  configura- 
tion of  the  country.  Mountains,  it  has  been  said,  divide  ;  seas 
unite.  The  rise  and  the  long  continuance  in  so  small  a  country 
of  so  many  cities,  having  their  own  laws,  constitution,  separate 
history,  and  independent  existence,  can  only  be  explained  by 
the  fact  that  in  their  early  growth  they  were  protected,  each  by 
the  mountains  which  surrounded  it,  so  eff'ectually,  and  the  'ove 
of  liberty  in  this  time  was  developed  to  such  an  extent,  that  no 
single  city  was  able  to  establish  its  dominion  over  the  others, 
as  Rome  did  in  Italy,  and  create  a  Greek  empire.  With  the 
political  effects  of  the  mountains  of  Greece  we  have,  however, 
only  to  do  so  far  as  they  affected  the  literature  ;  and  their  effect 
on  it  was  very  great.  Every  one  of  the  numerous  states,  whose 
separate  political  existence  was  guaranteed  by  the  mountains, 


CONCLUSION.  487 

»vas  actually  or  potentially  a  separate  centre  of  civilisation  and  ol 
literature.  In  some  one  of  these  states  each  kind  of  literature 
could  find  the  conditions  appropriate  or  necessary  to  its  develop- 
ment Even  a  state  which  produced  no  men  of  literary  geniua 
itself  might  become  the  centre  at  which  poets  collected  and 
encourage  the  literature  it  could  not  produce,  as  was  the  case 
with  Sparta,  to  which  Greece  owed  the  development  of  choral 
lyric. 

But  the  service  which  Sparta,  for  instance,  rendered  to  litera- 
ture by  attracting  lyric  poets  to  herself  and  encouraging  the 
growth  of  choral  lyric,  would  have  been,  if  not  impossible,  at 
least  materially  diminished,  had  not  the  sea  afforded  an  easy 
means  of  communication,  and  united  the  colonies  with  the 
mother-land.  The  eastern  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  has  de 
served  well  of  literature,  for  it  brought  Greece  into  communi 
cation  with  her  colonies  on  the  islands  and  on  the  surrounding 
coasts,  and  enabled  the  numerous  Greek  cities  to  co-operate  in 
the  production  of  a  rich  and  varied  literature,  instead  of  being 
confined  each  to  a  one-sided  and  incomplete  development.  The 
process  of  communication  began  in  the  earliest  times,  as  is 
shown  by  the  spread  of  epic  literature.  Originating  in  Ionia,  it 
was  taken  up  in  Cyprus,  where  the  epic  called  the  Cypria  was 
composed,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  it  was  on 
the  coast  of  Africa  in  the  colony  of  Gyrene.  The  rapid  spread 
of  elegiac  poetry  is  even  more  strikingly  illustrated,  for  we  find 
Solon  in  Athens  quoting  from  his  contemporary  Mimnermus  of 
Colophon.  Choral  lyric,  which  originated  in  Asia  Minor,  was 
conveyed  to  Sparta  by  Alcman,  and  by  Simonides  of  Ceos  all 
over  the  Greek  world.  But  although  in  early  times  we  find 
as  much  interchange  and  reaction  in  the  colonies  amongst 
themselves  as  between  the  colonies  and  the  mother-country, 
with  the  advance  of  time  we  find  the  centripetal  tendency  be- 
coming dominant.  The  mother-coimtry  becomes  more  and  more 
the  centre  to  which  all  literature  and  art  gravitate.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  sixth  century  Sparta  attracted  poets  from  the 
colonies  in  Asia  Minor,  but  the  only  form  of  literature  which 
Sparta  rewarded  and  encouraged  was  choral  lyric.  No  such 
narrowness  characterised  Athens,  and  when  she  established 
herself  as  the  intellectual  capital  of  Greece,  all  men  of  genius 
received  a  welcome  there,  and  we  find  all  forms  of  literature 
deserting  their  native  homes,  even  their  native  dialects,  to 
come  to  Athens.  Iambic  poetry,  which  was  the  work  of 
Archilochus,  born  in  the  island  of  Paros,  found  its  finest  de- 
velopment in  the  dialogue  of  Athenian  drama.    The  dithyramb^ 


488  HISTORl?  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

which  was  brought  by  Arion  from  Lesbos  to  Greece,  was  adopted 
iu  Attica,  and  there  developed  into  tragedy.  Choral  lyric,  which 
grew  under  tlie  hands  of  Simonides  of  Ceos,  and  of  Alcman  before 
him,  was  recalled  from  the  circumference  of  the  Greek  world, 
where  it  had  been  at  the  service  of  tyrants,  to  add  to  the  beauty 
of  Attic  drama  and  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  Athenian  demo- 
cracy. Comedy,  which  Epicharmus  had  developed  in  Sicily, 
deserted  that  island  for  Athens.  Prose,  which  the  Ionian  logo- 
graphers  had  painfully  pioneered  ;  history,  which  has  Herodotus 
of  Halicarnassus  for  father ;  rhetoric,  the  seeds  of  which  were 
sown,  on  tlie  one  hand  in  Sicily,  on  the  otlier  in  Tonia ;  philo- 
sophy, Avhich  germinated  in  Sicily,  Ionia,  and  Elea  on  the  west 
coast  of  Italy — all  found  their  Avay  to  Athens,  there  to  be  carried 
to  a  height  of  perfection  impossible  in  their  places  of  origin. 
But  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  end.  As  long  as  literature 
had  many  centres,  there  was  no  danger  of  all  falling  by  a  single 
stroke  ;  but  when  it  was  centralised  in  Athens,  and  the  blow 
delivered  by  Philip  at  Clieeronea  had  fallen  on  Athens,  classical 
Greek  literature  perished  in  a  generation. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  distinguish  race-qualities  from  the 
characteristics  impressed  on  a  people  by  the  conditions  under 
which  it  lives,  since  the  latter  by  accumulation  and  transmission 
from  generation  to  generation  eventually  become  race-qualities. 
Thus  the  Spartans  possessed  qualities  common  to  them  and  the 
Dorians,  of  whom  they  were  a  branch,  and  also  qualities  peculiar 
to  themselves,  which  distinguish  them  from  other  Dorians.  But 
the  latter  qualities,  at  any  rate,  so  far  as  they  affect  the  relation 
of  Sparta  to  literature,  seem  to  be  the  work  of  the  peculiar  con- 
ditions under  which  the  Spartans  lived.  When  the  Dorians  in- 
vaded Greece  cannot  be  accurately  determined.  The  invasion 
belongs  to  prehistoric  times.  It  seems  to  have  been  subsequent, 
if  not  to  Homer,  at  least  to  the  state  of  things  depicted  in  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey.  When,  however,  it  did  take  place,  those 
Dorians  who  lodged  themselves  in  Sparta,  and  became  known 
to  history  as  Spartans  or  Lacedaemonians,  found  themselves  sur- 
rounded by  a  hostile  population,  to  whose  attacks  for  an  uncer- 
tain but  considerable  period  they  were  perpetually  exposed. 
This  pressure,  exercised  for  generations,  not  only  necessarily 
made  the  Spartans  a  military  people — it  made  them  a  military 
people  and  nothing  else.  The  ordinary  life  of  a  Spartan  citizen 
was  that  of  a  soldier  in  camp  or  garrison,  rather  than  that  of  a 
member  of  a  political  community,  and  this  system  of  life  wa-s 
highly  unfavourable  to  literature.  It  crushed  out  individuality  ; 
for  obedience,  not  independent  action,  is  the  quality  needed  in 


CONCLUSION.  489 

a  eoldier ;  and  it  inculcated  silence,  not  discusssion.  Spartan— 
"  laconic " — brevity  is  proverbial,  and  its  reason  is  obvious 
The  word  of  command  is  short  and  sharp,  and  must  be  received 
with  the  briefest  indication  that  the  subordinate  understands 
his  superior.  At  first,  the  connection  between  Spartar  brevity 
and  Spartan  sterility  in  literature  is  not  obvious,  for  with  us  a 
man  may  achieve  literary  success  and  speak  but  little.  But  in 
Greece  literature  was  oral.  Not  only  tlie  orator,  but  the  epic 
poet,  the  lyric  poet,  the  historian,  and  the  philosopher  themselves 
delivered  their  words  to  the  audience,  not  on  paper,  but  witli 
their  own  voices.  WTiere,  therefore,  as  in  Sparta,  the  oppor- 
tunities of  speech  were  reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  speech  itself 
was  necessarily  and  deliberately  discouraged,  there  could  be  but 
little  chance  for  literary  genius  to  struggle  into  light.  But  if 
Sparta  thus  debarred  herself  from  producing  literature,  she  at 
least  encouraged  it  to  a  certain  extent  ;  and  the  extent  to 
which  she  could  encourage  it  was  strictly  defined  by  her  exclu- 
sively military  and  one-sided  growth.  An  individual  existence 
the  Spartan  was  not  allowed  to  have  ;  collectively  the  citizens 
might  assent  to  the  legislative  proposals  of  the  senate,  and  take 
the  field  under  the  king's  command.  Any  kind  of  literature, 
therefore,  which  was  to  flourish  in  Sparta  must  be  such  as  could 
be  participated  in  by  a  large  body  acting  under  the  word  of  com- 
mand ;  and  such  a  kind  of  literature  was  forthcoming  in  the 
lyric  poetry,  which  was  performed  by  choruses. 

Other  Dorians,  not  hemmed  in  by  such  unfavourable  con- 
ditions as  the  Spartans,  did  provide  some  contributions  to  the 
literature  of  Greece,  and  in  the  nature  of  their  contributions 
we  may  detect  the  qualities  of  the  race.  The  Dorians  in  Sicily 
sowed  the  seeds  of  rhetoric  and  carried  comedy  to  considerable 
perfection.  Of  imagination  the  race  seems  destitute  :  it  did  not 
produce  poets.  On  the  other  hand,  the  race  is  eminently  prac- 
tical as  well  as  prosaic,  and  their  humour  was  of  a  nature  which 
corresponded  to  these  qualities.  Personal  peculiarities  struck 
them  as  comic,  and  practical  jokes  afi'orded  them  great  amuse- 
ment. The  highest  altitude  at  which  comedy  could  survive 
amongst  them  was  the  level  of  a  modern  burlesque.  Their  per- 
ception, within  its  own  range — the  practical  affairs  of  life  — was 
quick.  Repartee  was  brisk,  and  when  circumstances  brought 
the  law-courts  into  great  activity,  the  rapidity  of  thrust  and 
parrj',  which  was  inherent  in  the  race,  at  once  found  its  proper 
practical  application  in  the  service  of  litigation.  But  the 
forensic  oratory  which  originated  in  Sicily  had  to  be  trans- 
planted to  Attica  and  to  be  cultivated  with  AUio  taste  bef  ira 


c 


490  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

it  could  take  its  place  among  the  branches  of  the  national 
literature. 

The  ^olians  form  a  contrast  both  to  the  Spartans  and  to  the 
Athenians.  The  development  of  individuality  is  as  characteris- 
tic of  the  ^olians  as  its  absence  is  of  the  Spartans.  But  the 
.^olians,  first  of  all  Greeks,  possessed  a  cavalry,  and  this;means 
that  they  were  wealthy  and  aristocratic ;  for  in  Greece,  as  in 
the  early  periods  of  every  nation's  history,  the  advantage  in 
combat  ensured  to  the  class  wealthy  enough  to  have  horses  to 
fight  on  resulted  in  the  elevation  of  that  class  above  others 
and  the  formation  of  an  aristocracy.  This  gives  us  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  ^olians  and  the  Athenians :  among  the 
former,  individuality  was  developed  in  the  aristocracy  alone ; 
among  the  latter,  in  all  the  citizens.  The  .^olians  added  to  the 
crown  of  Greek  literature  one  of  the  brightest  of  its  jewels — 
lyric  poetry,  as  we  understand  lyric  in  modern  times,  that  is,  the 
expression  of  the  poet's  feelings,  on  any  subject  whatever, 
as  his  individual  feeling.  It  is  further  to  the  honour  of  the 
.^olian  aristocracy  that  its  social  constitution  assigned  woman 
a  rank  and  allowed  her  a  freedom  which  she  enjoyed  in  no  other 
Greek  race ;  and  the  merited  reward  of  this  enlightenment  was 
not  wanting,  for  to  the  ^olian  race  belongs  the  woman  who  in 
poetry  ranks  above  all  women,  in  lyric  poetry  above  all  poets, 
Sappho. 

But  it  was  the  lonians  who  rendered  the  greatest  services  to 
Greek  literature.  They  were  a  quick-witted  race,  full  of  enter- 
prise, full  of  resources.  In  them  we  see  reflected  the  character 
of  the  sea,  as  in  the  Dorians  the  character  of  the  mountains. 
The  latter  partook  of  the  narrowness  and  exclusiveness  of  their 
own  homes,  hemmed  in  by  mountains,  and  by  them  protected 
from  the  incursion  of  strangers  and  strange  innovations.  The 
lonians,  on  the  other  hand,  were  open  as  the  sea,  and  had  as  many 
moods.  They  were  eminently  susceptible  to  beauty  in  all  its 
forms,  to  the  charm  of  change  and  to  novelty.  They  were  ever 
ready  to  put  any  belief  or  institution  to  the  test  of  discussion, 
and  were  governed  as  much  by  ideas  as  by  sentiments.  Keen- 
ness of  intellect,  taste  in  all  matters  of  literature  and  art,  grace 
in  expression,  and  measure  in  everything  distinguished  them 
above  all  Greeks.  The  development  of  epic  poetry,  the  origin 
of  prose,  the  cultivation  of  philosophy,  are  the  proud  distinction 
of  the  Ionian  race. 

In  Athens  we  have  the  qualities  of  the  Ionian  race  in  their 
finest  flower.  Inhabiting  a  city  by  the  sea,  the  Athenians  were 
in  open  communication  with  all  the  eastern  colonies  of  Greece, 


CONCLUSION.  49 1 

while  the  main  routes  to  the  colonies  of  the  west  converged  at 
Athens.  The  capacities  of  the  sea  were  developed  fully  by  the 
Athenians.  Their  empire  was  a  maritime  empire,  and  thei« 
commercial  supremacy  was  established  by  the  sea.  It  was  the 
naval  victory  of  Salamis  which  made  democracy  inevitable,  and 
gave  to  every  citizen  of  Athens  the  right  to  help  in  governing 
the  city  which  he  had  helped  in  saving.  The  citizens  into 
whose  hands  was  thus  given  the  government  of  this  great  city 
were  essentially  an  enlightened  people.  'No  seed  of  science, 
art,  or  literature  was  sown  among  them  in  vain  ;  no  attempt  to 
improve  or  embellish  life  was  rejected  by  them  because  it  was 
unknown  to  their  fathers  or  foreign  to  their  prejudices.  So  far 
as  the  Athenians  differ  from  the  lonians,  of  whom  they  were  a 
branch,  the  difference  is  the  same  as  that  between  Greece  and 
the  colonies  generally.  The  Athenians  were  less  original  but 
more  receptive  than  the  lonians  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor. 
If  they  were  less  ready  at  striking  out  a  new  line,  they  were 
more  persistent  in  working  out  an  old  one.  If  they  invented 
no  instrument,  they  added  new  strings  to  the  instruments  in- 
vented by  others,  and  extracted  tones  of  beauty  unsuspected  by 
the  inventors.  Eminently  enlightened,  they  not  only  appreciated 
and  welcomed  every  form  of  literature  which  existed  in  Greece, 
but  they  extracted  the  essence  from  epic,  iambic,  and  lyric 
poetry,  and,  by  uniting  them  in  the  drama,  gave  them  a  form 
which  gratified  the  eye  as  well  as  the  ear,  and  marked  the 
culminating  point  of  Greek  poetry.  In  prose  their  taste  was 
equally  catholic,  and  their  services  to  literature  equally  great. 
They  furnished  Herodotus  with  his  most  appreciative  audiences  ; 
their  city  was  the  centre  to  which  rhetoricians  and  philosophers 
congregated  from  all  quarters  of  Greece.  History  was  given  a 
profound  and  scientific  basis  by  Thucydides ;  philosophy  was 
given  by  Socrates  the  direction  which  it  has  since  ever  followed, 
by  Plato  a  literary  form  which  it  has  since  never  surpassed ;  and 
finally,  oratory,  developed  by  a  series  of  artists  in  words,  reached 
its  zenith  in  the  speeches  of  Demosthenes. 

Although,  up  to  this  point,  our  object  has  been  to  see  only 
how  Greek  literature  was  affected  by  the  race-qualities  of  the 
Greeks  and  the  physical  conditions  under  which  they  lived,  we 
have  been  compelled  incidentally  to  take  into  consideration  the 
influence  of  political  and  social  conditions.  But  before  we  cau 
estimate  their  influence  fully,  or  fully  comprehend  the  influence 
of  the  Greek  language  on  Greek  literature,  we  must  have  some 
idea  of  the  way  in  which,  in  classical  times,  literature  was  com- 
municated to  the  public     It  is  a  matter  of  doubt  whether 


492  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

writing  was  even  known  in  Greece  much  before  B.C.  700.  It 
is  probable  that  for  a  century  and  a  half  after  that  date  it  was 
only  used  for  purposes  of  commerce  and  correspondence.  For 
a  century  after  that  it  seems  as  though  the  only  use  it  was  to 
literature  was  to  enable  an  author  to  write  out  a  single  copy  ol 
his  works.  It  is  only  about  b.c.  430  or  420  that  we  find  copies 
of  manuscripts  multiplied  and  diffused,  and  for  a  century  after 
that  time  it  was  not  to  the  reading  public  that  authors  addressed 
themselves.  In  other  words,  writing  seems  not  to  have  been 
known  during  the  period  of  epic  poetry,  not  to  have  been  used 
for  literary  purposes  during  the  age  of  lyric  (except  towards  the 
end),  to  have  been  used  by  the  early  historians,  philosophers, 
and  dramatists  only  as  an  aid  to  composition,  and  not  to  have 
been  needed  as  a  means  of  publication  by  the  orators,  with 
whom  classical  Greek  literature  ends. 

Greek  literature,  then,  was  communicated  to  the  public  orally, 
not  by  means  of  the  multiplication  and  diffusion  of  manuscripts. 
But  oral  communication  implies  the  collection  of  an  audience  to 
whom  the  author  can  address  his  words ;  and  the  occasion  on 
which,  the  purposes  for  wliich,  the  place  in  which,  and  the  fre- 
quency with  which  the  audience  is  collected,  exercise  a  consider- 
able influence  on  the  literary  form  of  the  work  presented  to  it. 
Further,  the  reaction  of  the  audience  on  the  author  being  more 
immediate,  was  more  effectual  than  it  is  even  in  these  days  of 
the  printing-press.  Let  us  then  see  the  nature  of  the  audiences 
to  whose  approval  the  various  kinds  of  Greek  literature  were 
submitted,  and  their  influence  on  the  development  of  that  litera- 
ture. In  the  earliest  times,  the  period  of  epic  poetry,  it  was  to 
the  kings  and  cliieftains  that  the  poets  looked  for  patronage, 
and  it  was  in  a  chieftain's  hall  that  the  minstrel  found  an  audi- 
ence to  appreciate  his  poetry  and  reward  his  efforts.  It  was 
not  unnatural,  therefore,  that  the  minstrel  chose  for  his  theme 
the  exploits  and  adventures  of  famous  heroes  in  whom  hia 
patrons  saw  the  mythical  reflection  of  themselves,  and  to  whom, 
in  many  cases,  they  traditionally  traced  their  origin.  When, 
this  state  of  things  passed  away,  literary  genius  found  the  most 
favourable  conditions  for  its  development  in  another  race  and 
another  place.  The  culture  of  the  iEolians  and  the  natural 
beauties  of  Lesbos  fostered  the  growth  of  lyric  poetry.  But 
the  audience  to  whom  this  kind  of  poetry  was  addressed  waa 
more  exclusive  than  were  the  audiences  who  listened  to  epic 
poetry.  The  latter  consisted  of  all  the  household  of  the  chief- 
tain, which  was  addressed  by  a  wandering  minstrel  The  audi- 
ence of  lyric  poetry  consisted  of  the  ./Eolian  aristocracy  exclu- 


CONCLUSION.  493 

eively,  who  were  addressed  by  a  member  of  tbeii  own  order 
possessing  the  same  general  views  of  life  and  society  as  tilers 
selves.  Hence  the  personal  and  intimate  character  of  lyric 
poetry,  which  was  the  outpouring  of  the  poet's  heart  to  those 
on  whose  sympathy  he  could  confidently  rely.  But  -in  other 
countries,  both  at  the  same  time  as,  and  later  than,  the  develop- 
ment of  personal  lyrics  in  Lesbos,  the  social  and  political  con- 
ditions were  different,  produced  a  different  kind  of  audience, 
and  resulted  in  a  different  kind  of  lyric.  In  Sparta,  for  in- 
stance, as  we  have  seen,  the  citizens  were,  by  the  bonds  of  their 
condition,  only  allowed  to  participate  in  literature  collectively. 
For  them  something  was  required,  in  the  production  of  which 
a  large  body  could  partake,  and  to  which  the  whole  body  of 
citizens  could  listen  at  once.  These  conditions  resulted  in  the 
development  of  choral  lyric.  The  rise  of  democracy  at  Athens, 
and  the  consequent  demand  for  a  form  of  literary  entertainment 
which  the  whole  population  of  the  great  city  could  simulta- 
neou.^ly  be  present  at,  were  conditions  which  forced  the  growth 
of  the  drama.  But  dramas  were  only  produced  in  Athens  at 
stated  and  somewhat  long  intervals,  while  the  people  became 
more  and  more  eager  for  literary  food,  and  the  result  was  that 
the  assembly  and  the  law-courts,  in  which  the  people  found 
themselves  gathered  with  great  frequency,  became  the  means 
of  gratifying  the  literary  instincts  of  the  Athenians.  Orators 
sought  to  impart  to  prose  an  artistic  beauty  of  its  own  which 
should  rival  that  of  poetry ;  and,  under  the  sound  and  watchful 
criticism  of  their  audience,  the  Athenian  people,  they  at  last 
succeeded. 

Thus  the  oral  communication  of  classical  Greek  literature 
and  the  conditions  under  which  it  was  communicated  together 
materially  influenced  the  course  of  its  development.  To  these 
causes  must  also  be  assigned  their  contribution  to  the  excellence 
of  Greek  literature.  Aristotle  rightly  recognised  that,  on  the 
whole  and  in  the  long-run,  the  judgment  of  a  large  public  was 
more  sound,  less  liable  to  eccentricit)^  one-sidedness,  and  exag- 
geration, than  are  cliques  and  sectiorjg.  Now,  in  Athens,  oratory 
and  the  drama  were  necessarily  thus  subjected  to  the  criticism 
of  the  whole  people,  who,  as  far  as  we  may  judge  by  results, 
discharged  the  function  of  criticism  with  judgment  and  dis- 
crimination. This  was,  doubtless,  partly  due  to  the  natural 
taste  of  the  Athenians ;  but  taste  requires  cultivation,  and  it  is 
the  oral  communication  of  hterature  to  which  we  must  ascribe 
the  cultivation  of  th^  Athenians.  If  an  Athenian  at  timeg 
heard  inferior  dramas  and  inferior  oratory,  he  could  not  go  to 


494  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

the  assembly  and  the  theatre  without  also  hearing  great  drama- 
tists and  fine  orators ;  whereas,  at  the  present  day,  a  man  may 
read  and  read,  and  not  read  the  masterpieces  which  alone  cul- 
tivate the  mind.  Further,  the  literature  which  is  read  costs 
money;  the  literature  to  which  the  Athenians  listened  was  free. 
Finally,  the  value  we  have  here  put  upon  oral  communication 
is  confirmed  by  the  decline  literature  underwent  when  it  ceased 
to  be  communicated  orally.  The  narrowness  of  the  reading 
public,  to  whom  authors  of  the  Alexandrian  times  addressed 
themselves,  is  reflected  in  the  narrowness  of  their  point  of 
view,  and  the  incapacity  of  this  narrow  public  to  discharge  its 
literary  and  critical  functions  seems  indicated  by  the  fact  that 
it  did  not  succeed  in  developing  any  writer  of  genius. 

Bearing  in  mind  that  classical  Greek  literature  was  designed 
to  be  uttered  aloud,  and  Avas  necessarily  tested  by  the  ears  of 
the  audience,  whose  sense  of  beauty  its  sound  had  to  gratify, 
we  can  estimate  the  importance  of  the  chief  characteristics 
of  the  language  to  the  literature.  In  the  changes  which  all 
languages,  not  dead,  undergo,  one  of  the  most  important  causes 
is  man's  desire  to  express  himself  with  the  least  amount  of 
trouble.  Some  words  are  found  to  be  as  intelligible  when 
docked  of  a  letter  as  when  they  are  pronounced  in  full ;  and 
gradually  the  letter  is  dropped.  Some  sounds  are  hard,  some 
easy  to  repeat  in  quick  succession,  and,  accordingly,  when  such 
combinations  occur  in  a  word,  one  of  the  sounds,  if  hard  to 
repeat,  is  altered,  "  dissimilated,"  or  a  sound  easy  to  repeat  is 
substituted  for  some  other  sound,  which  is  thus  "  assimilated  " 
to  the  other.  The  result  in  all  cases  is  a  word  easier  to  pro- 
nounce in  the  new  than  in  the  old  form.  But  although  the 
unconscious  striving  after  ease  in  pronunciation  is  at  the  bottom 
of  many  changes,  there  is  also  at  work  a  tendency  to  gratify 
the  ear  by  making  changes  which  result  in  producing  sounds 
pleasant  in  themselves  to  listen  to,  and  by  avoiding  sounds  of 
the  opposite  descriptioa^  On  the  strength  of  this  latter  in- 
stinct mainly  depends  the  beauty  of  a  language  as  judged  by 
the  ear ;  and  the  instinct  was  strong  in  the  Greeks  and  potent 

1  Ultimately,  the  conception  of  beauty  in  sound  may,  perhaps,  be  traced 
back  to  ease  of  pronunciation.  Movements  are  graceful  which  are  pro- 
duced with  the  minimum  of  effort.  Flowing  lines  are  more  graceful  than 
angles  because  they  suggest  the  idea  that  they  have  been  produced  with 
more  ease.  So,  too,  the  reason  why  some  sounds  are  pleasant  to  the  ear  may 
be  that  they  suggest  the  idea  that  they  flow  without  effort.  Of  course,  this 
would  only  apply,  or  apply  mainly  only,  to  spoken  sounds.  Singing  and 
music  require  other  explanations,  though  the  difference  in  efifort  between 
singing,  which  is  pleasant,  and  screaming,  which  is  n^ri;,  points  in  the  sam* 
direction. 


CONCLUSION.  495 

in  the  formation  of  their  language.  Whether  the  disappearance 
of  the  w  sound  of  the  digamma  and  the  y  sound  of  the  iota 
was  determined  by  a  proper  exercise  of  instinct  or  only  by  a 
capricious  repugnance,  the  aversion  to  the  hissing  sound  of  a 
succession  of  sibilants  was  certainly  a  gain  to  the  beauty  of 
the  language.^  Even  clearer  cases  of  gain  are  the  systematic 
avoidance  of  a  congeries  of  consonants,  and  the  repugnance  to 
ending  a  word  with  a  consonant,  and  thus  bringing  it  up  with 
a  jerk  at  the  end.  Assimilation  and  dissimilation  both  of  con- 
sonants and  vowels  were  used  also  with  a  sense  of  the  beauty 
to  be  got  out  of  them.  The  vowel  system  was  so  developed 
as  to  give  variety  and  lightness  to  the  language.  In  a  word  of 
several  syllables,  instead  of  repeating  the  same  vowel  sound  in 
syllable  after  syllable,  so  that  the  sound  of  the  word  was  dull 
and  monotonous,  the  vowels  were  varied.  When  once  this 
variation  of  vowels  had  established  itself  in  certain  words,  the 
influence  of  analogy  reinforced  the  strength  of  the  original 
tendency,  and  the  dissimilation  of  vowels  became  the  recog- 
nised principle  regulating  the  addition  of  terminations  (such  as 
those  of  the  comparative  and  superlative  of  adjectives)  and  the 
process  of  word-formation. 

The  two  principles  which  underlie  the  production  of  things 
beautiful,  whether  in  painting,  music,  or  literature,  are  variety 
in  harmony  and  variety  in  contrast.  These  two  qualities  are 
conspicuous  in  the  Greek  language,  judged  by  the  ear ;  and  to 
them  must  be  added  the  quality  which  characterised  Greek  art 
generally — measure  in  all  things.  The  Greeks  allowed  play  to 
the  tendency  to  express  themselves  with  as  little  trouble  as 
possible,  but  they  did  not  allow  it  to  proceed  so  far  as  to  mili- 
tate against  intelligibility.  They  rejected  consonants  which 
were  hard  to  pronounce  or  disagreeable  to  hear,  but  they 
stopped  in  this  process  at  the  point  beyond  which  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  go  without  depriving  the  language  of 
the  variety  of  contrast  between  the  vowel  and  the  consonantal 
systems.  They  inherited  a  vowel  system  in  which  the  variety 
of  contrast  existed,  and  they  supplemented  it  by  differentiating 
the  broad  sound  of  the  a  so  as  to  add  variety  in  harmony. 
This,  then,  was  the  instrument  which  Greek  authors  received 
from  the  Greek  people,  and  with  which  they  had  to  express 
their  thoughts  in  sounds  which  would  satisfy  the  ear  of  the 
nation  which  had  created  so  fair  a  language.  What  the  instinct 
of  the  people  had  done  for  the  words  of   the  language,   the 

^  Of  this  aversion  the  Greeks  were  consciouB.  Euripides  was  ridiculed 
by  the  comediaDs  for  offending  against  it. 


49 6  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE, 

literaiy  men  in  their  turn  did  for  the  sentence  and  the  period 
The  sentence,  and  then  the  period,  first  in  poetry  and  after 
wards  in  prose,  were,  as  regards  the  beauty  of  their  sound, 
gradually  invested  with  the  same  variety  of  harmony  and  con- 
trast, the  same  balance,  ease  of  pronunciation,  and  gratification 
to  the  sense  of  hearing,  as  already  marked  the  separate  words 
of  the  language.  This  constitutes  one  of  the  beauties  of  Greel 
literature,  and  is  a  beauty  intimately  connected  with  its  oral 
communication.  Modern  literature  is  taken  in  by  the  eyes 
rather  than  the  ears ;  and  modern  readers  so  rarely  hear  litera- 
ture, that  it  is  sometimes  even  necessary  to  explain  that  prose 
quite  as  much  as  poetry  has  its  own  rhythms,  and  that  in  the 
mere  sound  of  a  sentence  beauty  may  reside. 

But  although  art  may  take  words  as  its  material  and  create 
beauty  out  of  them  as  well  as  out  of  musical  sounds,  the  prac- 
tical object  of  language  is  to  express  our  thoughts.  We  have 
therefore  to  consider  how  the  Greek  language  performed  this  its 
main  function.  The  first  and  greatest  quality  of  the  language 
from  this  point  of  view  is  its  clearness.  Both  in  the  formation 
of  words  and  in  the  structure  of  its  sentences  it  is  transparent. 
As  regards  the  former,  a  word  in  Greek  at  once  shows  by  its 
form  what  other  words  it  is  by  derivation  connected  with,  what 
is  the  root  of  the  word,  how  it  is  formed  from  the  root,  and 
what  modification  in  meaning  the  root  has  undergone  along 
with  its  modification  in  form  or  with  its  extension  by  the  addi- 
tion of  a  termination.  The  structure  of  the  sentence  is  also 
transparent.  In  common  with  other  inflectional  languages,  it 
possessed  the  advantage  of  stamping  each  word  as  it  proceeded 
from  the  mouth  of  the  speaker  with  the  inflectional  mark  which 
indicated  its  position  and  function  in  the  sentence.  But  it  is  not 
in  all  inflectional  languages  that  the  structure  of  the  sentence  can 
be  thus  readily  seen  through ;  and  the  superior  transparency 
of  Greek,  as  we  have  it  in  the  literature  preserved  to  us,  is  due 
to  the  oral  character  of  the  literature.  In  works  that  are  de- 
signed to  be  read,  clearness  is  not  so  imperatively  demanded  as 
it  is  in  works  that  reach  an  audience  through  its  ears  only.  A 
reader,  if  he  fails  to  catch  the  author's  meaning  at  first,  can 
read  through  the  sentence  again  and  again  until  he  puzzles  the 
meaning  out.  But  an  audience  listening  to  an  orator,  a  drama, 
or  the  recitation  of  any  work,  whether  in  prose  or  poetry,  has 
no  such  opportunity.  Consequently,  the  author's  first  business, 
if  he  wishes  to  retain  the  attention  of  the  audience  whose  ap- 
proval he  is  seeking,  is  to  write  in  such  a  manner  that  he  who 
listens  can  readily  understand.     Hence  the  rareness  of  parea 


CONCLUSION.  497 

theses  in  Greek,  and  the  aversion  to  heaping  up  relative  clauses, 
which  necessarily  have  a  looseness  of  connection,  in  which  hoth 
author  and  audience  have  a  tendency,  which  is  difficult  to 
ohviate,  to  lose  sight  of  the  pi»int  of  view  from  which  the  sen- 
tence started.  Terseness,  toe  was  demanded  of  the  Greek 
author,  and  was  largely  obtained  by  the  use  of  participles. 
What  with  us  becomes  a  causal,  concessive,  temporal,  or  hypo- 
thetical clause,  was  expressed  in  Greek  by  a  participle.  A 
marked  feature  of  the  Greek  language  is  its  extensive  use  of  anti- 
thesis ;  the  value  of  which  for  an  oral  literature  is  considerable. 
It  substitutes  for  complex  sentences  simple  ones ;  for  a  pro- 
longed strain  a  short  and  easy  appeal  to  the  hearer's  attention. 
To  the  general  clearness  of  Greek  literature  there  are  two  classes 
of  exceptions.  The  first  is  constituted  by  the  few  authors  who, 
like  Thucydides,  wrote  to  be  studied  in  private,  and  not  to  be 
produced  before  the  assembled  public.  The  second  consists  of 
poetry,  such  as  the  choruses  of  plays  and  the  lyric  poetry  of 
Pindar,  which  was  destined  to  be  produced  with  the  most 
elaborate  musical  accompaniment  known  to  the  Greeks,  and  in 
which,  accordingly,  clearness  of  thought  seems  to  have  been 
subordinated  to  beauty  of  sound. 

The  second  great  quality  of  the  Greek  language  is  its  life. 
The  apparatus  of  terminations  and  inflections  with  which  the 
language  was  extensively  provided,  and  which  could  only  be 
worked  by  means  of  a  considerable  attention  to  regularity,  was 
never  allowed  to  reduce  the  formation  either  of  words  or 
sentences  to  a  merely  mechanical  process.  In  Latin  literature 
the  observance  of  the  laws  of  the  language  was  insisted  on  before 
everythinjif.  The  Greeks  pushed  nothing  to  excess  ;  nor  did  they 
sacrifice  to  monotonous  regularity  and  dull  formality  the  ad' 
vantages  which  an  independent  exercise  of  reason  might  secure 
in  the  way  of  ease,  grace,  and  variety.  Hence  we  not  only  find 
that  Herodotus  frequently  and  unintentionally  wanders  off  in  a 
sentence  which  is  perfectly  transparent  and  intelligible,  but 
which  never  comes  to  a  strictly  grammatical  conclusion.  "We 
also  find  that  anacolutha  of  this  kind  are  deliberately  introduced 
by  Demosthenes  to  afi'ord  relief  to  perfect  periods  and  artisti- 
cally rounded  sentences.  The  same  tendency  to  set  the  spirit 
:;bove  the  law  of  the  language  is  seen  in  the  Greek  fondness  for 
constructions  in  which  greater  regard  is  paid  to  the  sense  than 
to  the  grammatical  structure  of  the  sentence.  The  language  i3 
instinct  with  life  ;  it  never  tolerates  a  mere  aiitomatic  attention, 
it  is  transparect  to  those  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  look 
through  it,  but  ?t  requires  always  "  a  seeing  eye ; "  it  is  the  pro 

a  I 


498  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

duct  of  an  intelligent  people,  and  requires  intelligence  therefore 
to  follow  it.  Greek  thought  played  like  lightning  over  the 
sentence  while  it  was  in  course  of  formation,  and  frequently 
fused  two  sentences  into  one  pregnant  whole.  Hence  the  attrac- 
tion of  the  antecedent  into  the  clause  of  the  relative,  the  attraction 
of  the  relative  to  agree  in  case  with  the  demonstrative  pronoun, 
and  in  certain  cases  the  disappearance  of  the  demonstrative 
altogether.^ 

But  the  life  there  is  in  the  Greek  language  must  not  be 
supposed  to  consist  merely  in  violations  of  strict  and  formal 
grammar.  The  linguistic  instinct  of  the  Greeks  allowed  them 
only  to  pursue  the  somewhat  dangerous  path  of  departing  from 
grammar  so  far  as  it  led  to  increased  vividness  and  ease  without 
incurring  the  risk  of  unintelligibility.  The  most  triumphant 
display  of  the  quality  we  are  considering  occurs  within  the 
range  of  strict  grammar  :  it  consists  in  the  development  of  the 
Greek  particles.  They  are  essentially  the  work  of  an  intelligent 
people,  and  they  require  for  their  proper  use  an  insight  into  the 
language  which  Aristotle  remarked  was  not  in  his  day  usually 
possessed  by  foreigners.  In  reading  a  modern  writer,  it  is  very 
rarely  that  we  find  his  words  of  themselves  indicating  on  what 
part  of  the  sentence  he  intended  the  stress  to  be  laid ;  and  the 
absence  of  such  indication  frequently  leaves  us,  not  perhaps 
in  doubt  as  to  his  precise  meaning,  but  in  ignorance  of  the 
importance  which  a  certain  word  is  intended  to  have.  The 
"  forcible  feeble  "  device  of  italics  may  in  such  a  printed  sen- 
tence as  "  He  said  so  "  be  made  to  convey  an  imputation  on  the 
speaker's  accuracy  ;  but  it  ought  to  be  possible  to  express  this 
imputation  by  as  slight  a  modification  in  the  sentence  as  we 
make  in  the  tone  with  which  the  sentence  is  pronounced.  In 
Greek  it  can  be  done  by  the  insertion  of  a  particle  of  two  letters. 
Nothing  can  testify  more  plainly  to  the  habitual  liveliness 
with  which  the  Greeks  spoke  and  thought  than  the  fact  that 
it  modified  their  language  so  completely  that  every  significant 
inflection  of  the  voice  could  be  reflected  in  the  words  of  the 
sentence. 

Hitherto  we  have  considered  the  Greek  language  as  a  whole, 
but  it  was  divided  into  dialects,  and  they  played  an  important 
part  in  the  literature  of  Greece.  There  were  three  main  dialects, 
Doric,  Ionic,  and  yEolic,  and  many  varieties  and  sub-varieties 
of  these.  Indeed,  each  locality  seems  to  have  had  peculiarities 
of  speech,  doubtless  minute,  distinguishing  it  from  other  localities 

1  Heoce,  too,  the  fusion  of  two  strictly  speaking  inoompatible  points  ol 
view  in  such  sentences  as  otcd'  t  bpaaw. 


CONCLUSION.  499 

in  whicli  the  same  main  dialect  was  spoken.  The  three  main 
dialects  were  probably  sprung  from  one  common  ancestor,  but 
when  the  differentiation  took  place  is  unknown.  The  germs  ol 
the  difference  may  have  been  in  existence  before  Greek  was  a 
language  by  itself  :  the  rise  of  the  three  dialects  is  certainly 
pre-historic.  On  the  differences  between  them  this  is  not  the 
place  to  speak.  It  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  say  that 
Doric  retained  more  of  the  old  sounds  belonging  to  the  original 
language  than  the  other  dialects,  and  that  changes  and  innova- 
tions were  most  frequent  in  Ionic.  The  difference  corresponds 
with  the  difference  in  character  between  the  conservative  Dorians 
and  the  more  progressive  lonians.  The  Dorians  spoke,  as  in 
matters  political  and  social  they  moved,  slowly  and  deliberately. 
The  lonians,  especially  the  Athenians,  spoke  rapidly  and  volubly. 
Accordingly,  in  Doric  we  find  that  the  vowel  sounds  are  broader 
and  fuller,  and  the  combinations  of  consonants  require  more  effort 
to  pronounce ;  while  in  Ionic  the  attrition  of  perpetual  usage 
has  worn  down  both  classes  of  sound  into  greater  flexibility. 
Ionic  was  therefore  naturally  the  dialect  for  prose,  as  it  was  the 
dialect  of  the  race  in  which  discussion  was  most  free  and  most 
frequent.  Doric,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  have  been  spe- 
cially suited  for  musical  accompaniment,  and  was  the  dialect  in 
which  lyric  poetry  was  written. 

"With  regard  to  the  functions  of  the  dialects  in  literature,  it 
is  generally  said  that  each  kind  of  literature  continued  to  be 
composed  in  the  dialect  of  the  race  which  invented  it.  This 
with  considerable  modifications  is  true.  The  conditions  which 
determined  what  kind  of  literature  each  race  should  produce 
would  to  a  very  large  extent  be  the  same  as  those  which  deter- 
mined the  dialect  of  the  race ;  and  consequently  between  the 
literature  and  the  dialect  of  any  place  there  would  be  an 
affinity  and  harmony  which  was  not  likely  to  escape  the  fine 
perception  of  the  Greeks,  nor  to  be  violated  by  them.  The  best 
example  is  afforded  by  choral  lyric,  which,  whether  the  poet 
who  took  it  up  came  from  Boeotia  or  from  Ionia,  and  even  when 
it  was  incorporated  into  the  Attic  drama,  still  continued  to  be 
composed  in  Doric.  But  even  this  example  is  not  wholly  satis- 
factory, for  although  Sparta  was  the  place  in  which  choral  lyric 
received  its  earliest  development,  choral  lyric  was  in  no  measure 
the  work  of  Spartan  poets.  And  in  the  next  place,  in  the  drama 
at  least,  the  Doric  of  the  choruses  is  not  precisely  Doric  as  it 
was  ever  spoken,  but  a  conventional  literary  dialect,  in  which 
words  were  inserted  borrowed  from  other  dialects  or  invented 
bj  the  poet  himself.     The  dialect  in  which  the  Homeric  poems 


500  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE. 

were  composed  was  indt-ad  followed,  as  being  the  proper  dialect 
for  epic  poetry  ;  but  it  probably  also  is  a  conventional  dialect, 
used  for  literary  purposes,  and  not  anywhere  used  as  the  lan- 
guage of  ordinary  life.  Of  the  three  remaining  kinds  of  litera- 
ture, iambic  poetry,  personal  lyrics,  and  prose,  none  retained  its 
original  dialect  throughout  its  history.  Personal  lyric  originated 
among  the  Cohans,  but  when  transplanted  to  any  other  people, 
naturally  took  the  dialect  of  the  poet  whose  individual  feelings 
it  was  employed  to  convey.  Iambic  poetry  may  be  regarded 
as  having  originated  in  Paros  through  the  genius  of  Archi- 
lochus,  and  for  long  it  retained  its  native  dialect.  But  when  it 
was  adopted  by  the  Athenians  for  the  dialogue  of  drama,  it 
took  the  dialect  used  in  ordinary  life  by  the  audience  who  heard 
it,  and  became  Attic.  In  the  same  way,  and  for  the  same  rea- 
sons, prose,  which  was  the  work  of  the  lonians  in  Asia  ]\Iinor 
originally,  and  which  for  some  time  retained  its  native  Ionic, 
was  no  sooner  adopted  by  the  Athenians  than  it  became  Attic 
itself.  The  chief  instrument  in  the  development  of  artistic 
prose  was  Athenian  oratory  ;  and  it  was  impossible  that  the 
Athenians  should  transact  their  political  discussions  and  cases 
at  law  in  a  dialect  not  their  own.  But  in  these  cases,  where  a 
branch  of  literature  was  finally  invested  with  a  dialect  othei 
than  that  of  the  race  which  invented  it,  the  change  was  amply 
justified  by  the  result. 

If  the  final  elaboration  of  prose  and  of  the  iambic  took  place 
in  Attic,  it  was  partly  because  iambics  and  prose  found  the  same 
conditions  favourable  to  their  development  as  favoured  the  de- 
velopment of  the  Attic  dialect.  What  were  these  conditions  ? 
Mainly  the  native  tendency  of  the  Athenians  to  speak  much 
and  discuss  everything.  Perpetual  use  gave  the  polish,  per- 
petual care  the  keenness,  which,  as  an  instrument  of  thought, 
their  language  possessed.  These  conditions  are  also  obviously 
suitable  to  the  development  of  prose  in  literature,  and  to  the 
development  of  iambic  poetry.  Iambics  are  in  poetry  what 
prose  is  in  literature.  They  are  the  vehicle  for  dialogue  and 
discussion.  They  have  the  most  affinity,  as  Aristotle  pointed 
out,  with  the  rhythm  of  ordinary  conversation.  They  are  framed 
by  nature  for  pointed,  terse,  and  telling  blows,  such  as  might  be 
given  by  orators  in  debate.  It  is,  therefore,  by  no  acci  'ent  that 
iambics  were  developed  amongst  a  people  who  delighted  in 
discussion,  and  no  casual  coincidence  that  the  period  of  the  drama 
was  followed  by  that  of  the  orators.  The  iambics  of  the  stag* 
had  prepared  the  language,  literature,  and  people  for  the  oratory 
of  the  law-courts  and  the  assembly. 


CONCLUSION.  501 

Finally,  as  regards  the  language,  its  decay  is  instri  ctivc  for 
the  history  of  the  literature.  As  the  centralisation  of  literature 
in  Athens  facilitated  its  sudden  fall,  so  the  decay  of  the  lan- 
guage was  accelerated  by  tlie  fact  that  Attic  drove  the  other 
dialects  out  of  the  field.  When  Attic  succumbed  tlie  other 
dialects  had  no  recuperative  forces  to  supply  to  the  language, 
because  Attic  had  already  drained  them  of  their  vitality.  Lan- 
guage and  literature  did  indeed  continue  to  exist  for  many  cen- 
turies after  the  death  of  Demosthenes ;  but  the  literature  was 
cosmopolitan,  not  specifically  Greek,  the  language  Hellenistic, 
not  classical.  For  language  and  literature  alike  the  price  of 
dissemination  was  decay.  The  conditions  which  were  indispen- 
sable, if  the  language  and  literature  of  Greece  were  to  become 
universal,  were  fatal  to  their  further  development  as  purely 
Greek.  The  literature  of  Greece  could  only  become  the  pro- 
perty of  the  whole  civilised  world  when  literature  ceased  to  be 
diffused  orally,  and  came  to  be  spread  by  the  multiplication  of 
manuscripts ;  and,  as  we  have  seen  already,  the  written  com- 
munication of  literature  was  inconsistent  with  that  collective 
criticism  of  the  people,  whose  function  was  to  foster  what  was 
good  and  weed  out  what  was  bad.  So,  too,  the  language  of 
Greece,  or  rather  Attic,  could  only  become  universal  in  the 
ancient  world  by  being  in  everybody's  lips ;  and  the  language 
could  not  be  used  by  foreigners  of  all  kinds,  and  by  people 
inferior  in  culture  and  intelligence  to  the  Athenians  without 
suffering.^  Its  two  great  qualities,  clearness  and  life,  are  essen- 
tially due  to  the  powers  of  reason  which  the  Greeks  pre-emi- 
nently possessed,  developed  by  the  continual  contact  of  mind 
with  mind.  "  Nothing  but  constant  communion  with  his  con- 
temporaries could  have  produced  [in  an  Athenian]  that  marvel- 
lous precision  of  language  which  is  observable  in  Aristophanes. 
Plato,  and  the  Orators."  ^  This  constant  communion  was  im- 
possible to  foreigners,  even  when  they  possessed  the  natural 
powers  of  intellect  which  might  have  benefited  thereby,  and 
was  forfeited  by  natives  who,  like  Xenophon,  spent  much  of 
their  time  abroad. 

In  fine,  Greek  literature  was  classical  as  long  as  it  was  oral. 
The  character  and  extent  of  the  audience  addressed  changed  as 
social  and  political  conditions  changed.  When  the  character 
and  extent  of  the  audience  changed,  fresh  means  of  addressing 
it  were  discovered.     The  character  and  extent  of  the  audience, 

^  Compare  the  remark  of  Aristotle's,  referred  to  already,  that  foreigneri 
eould  not  master  the  use  of  the  Greek  particles. 
*  The  New  Phrynickus,  p.  163. 


502  HISTORY  OF  GREEK  LITERATURE, 

together  ^vith  the  means  adopted  for  addressing  it,  determiiied 
the  form  of  the  matter  addressed  to  it.  To  the  success  ve 
changes  in  the  former  correspond  the  successive  forms  of  the 

literature-epic,  lyric,  and  dramatic  PO^^^y' l^^^^^^'^^Vpt  "Sei 
and  phUosophical  prose.    That  is  the  history  of  Greek  liteiar 

iaift 


INDEX. 


Ababis,  91 

Acestor,  233 

Achseus,  231 

Achilleis,  37 

Acron,  103 

Actors,  196,  197,  198 

Acusilaus,  84,  299,  301,  324 

jEqimios,  86 

^lian,  29,  128 

^neas,  the  tactician,  366 

^olians,  their  place  in  Greek  litera- 
ture, 490 

^schines,  85,  406,  450  ff. 

^schylus,  67,  135,  166,  169,  183, 
187,  188,  189,  192  ff.,  210,  215, 
223,  247,  273,  376,  450  ff. 

j3Esion,  460 

^thiopis,  56,  60,  62,  68 

Agathocles,  173 

Agathon,  232 

Agias,  59 

Alcaeus,  123,  130  ff.,  156,  163 

Alcseus,  the  comedian,  253 

Alcidamas,  398,  400  ff. 

Alcimenes,  248 

Alcmceonis,  6i 

Alcman,  123,  126  ff.,  144,  158,  485, 
487,  488 

Alexamenus,  476 

Alexander,  77 

Alexandrians,  30,  31 

Alexis,  287 

Amazonia,  61 

Ameipsias,  252 

Aminias,  99 

Amphis,  291 

Anacreon,  124,  157,  160 

Anaxagoras,  327,  467 

Anaxandrides,  lyric  poet,  182 

Anaxaudridee,  comedian,  291 


AnaxilM,  292 

Anaximander,  philosopher,  93,  465 

Anaximander,  historian,  365 

Anaximenes,  93,  298,  398,  465 

Anaximenes,  the  orator,  402 

Anaxis,  366 

Andocides,  379  ff.,  390,  452,  454 

Androtion,  460 

Annalists,  339 

Antandros,  366 

Antidotus,  293 

Antimachus,  365 

Antimachus  of  Colophon,  39,  90 

Antimachus  of  Teos,  90 

Antiochus  of  Syracuse,  329  n. 

Antiphanes,  287 

Antiphon,  the  tragedian,  233 

Antiphon,  the  orator,  327,  371  ff., 

385.  405 
Antisthenes,  398  ff.,  465 
Aphareus,  233 
Apollodorus,  lyrist,  1 73 
Apollodorus,  tragedian,  233 
Apollophanes,  253 
Arachnomachia,  76 
Araros,  293 
Archelaus,  468 
Archilochus,  44,  75,  88,  Ii3ff.,  129^ 

487 
Archippus,  244,  252 
Arctinus,  56,  58,  61 
Argas,  182 
Arignote,  181 
Arion,  128,  488 
Ariphron,  182 

Aristagoras,  the  historian,  366 
Aristarchus,  25 

Aristarchus,  the  tragedian,  233 
Aristeas,  91 
Aristiaa,  1S7 


j04 


INDEX. 


Aristippus,  365,  468 

Aristocles,  468 

Aristogiton,  459 

Aristomeiies,  253 

Aristonicus,  436 

Aristonynius,  253 

Aristophanes  of  B^'zantium,  86 

Aristophanes,  241,  244,  245,  246, 
247,  248,  253  S.,  330  n.,  394,  479, 
486 

Aristophon,  the  comedian,  292 

Aristophon,  the  orator,  436 

Aristotle,  17,  30,39,  75 

Asianism,  462  ff. 

Asios.  87 

Assyrian  writing,  41  ;  libraries,  47 

Astrologia,  88 

Astronomy,  88 

Astydamas,  206 

Athanis,  366 

Athenseus,  286 

Athens,  her  services  to  Greek  litera- 
ture, 491 

Atthis,  61,  87 

Audiences,  for  epic  poems,  49  ;  for 
lyric,  50  ff. ;  reaction  on  authors, 
406 

Axionicus,  292 

Bacchylides,  166,  170,  182 

Bacis,  92 

Background  of  Euripides'  plays,  8, 

of  the  ^neid,  8 
Basques,  19 
Batrachomyomachia,  76 
Belissus,  468 
Bion,  298  ff.,  468 
Blaesus,  237 
Boeotus,  76 
Books,  trade  in,  45  ff, 
Bouyonia,  87 
Brontinus,  92 
Bucolics,  146 
Byzantine  learning,  30  n. 

Cadmcs,  42,  298  ff.,  301,  324 
Caesar,  351 
Callias,  252 
Callicrates,  460 
Callinus,  60,  107,  112  ff. 
Callisthenes,  436 
Caminos,  75 
Cantharus,  244,  253 
Carcinus  of  Naupactua,  87 


Carcinus,  tragedan,  219 

Catalogue  of  women,  86 

Cephisodorus,  the  comedian,  253 

Cephisodorus,  the  historian,  366 

Cercopes,  75 

Cercops,  92 

Chaerenion,  233,  234 

Charisius,  461 

Charixena,  181 

Charon,  298,  302,  324 

Chersias,  87 

Chionides,  244 

Chios,  Homeridae  in,  53 

Choerilus,  epic  pciet,  90 

Choerilus,  the  dramatist,  1 87,   18S 

and  n. 
Choral  lyric,  179  ff.,  182 
Chorizontes,  25,  84 
Chorus   of    Greek    drama,    179   ff., 

186,   187  n.,    190,    196,  200,  202, 

214,  226,  282  ff. 
Chronology,  Greek,  339 
Chrysippus,  85 
Chrysothemis,  108 
Cicero,  29,  30,  31,  74  ;  and  IsocrateSj 

.398 
Ciuesias,  182 
Cinaethon,  57,  60,  87 
Classical  Greek  literature,   its   na- 
ture,   I  ;    pfoper  introduction  tc 

literature  generally,  I,  484 
Cleophon,  233 
Cleostratus,  88 
Clitagora,  181 
Clito,  181 
Clitomachus,  436 
Clonas,  123,  124,  125,  126 
Clyteniestra,  18  n.,  19  n. 
Comedy,  234 ff.  ;  Sicilian,  24I  ;  old, 

243 ;     political     influence,    262 ; 

middle,  279  ff.  ;  new,  ib. 
Commos,  the,  191 
Communication,     rapid,     of    early 

Greek  literature,  487 
"  Contamination,"  277 
Corax.  369 
Corinthian  Einc,  87 
Corinna,  171,  173,  181 
Cosmopolitan    character    of     later 

Greek  literature,  i 
Crates  of  Mallos,  32 
Crates,  the  comedian,  244  ff. 
Cratinus,  245  ff.,  249 
Cratinus,  the  younger,  293 


INDEX. 


5C5 


Cratisspus,  365 
Cratylus,  468 
Creophylus,  61 
Crexus,  182 

Critias,  155,  233,  365,  391 
Crow-song,  the,  109 
Ctesias,  362  If. 
Cyclic  chorus,  129 
Cyclic  Odyssey,  63 
Cycle,  epic,  54  ff.,  61  ff. 
Cydias,  460 
Cypria,  54  ff.,  60,  61 

Damastes,  299 

Damon,  436 

Damophila,  143 

Danais,  87 

Deiochus,  298  ff., 

Demades,  449,  458  S. 

Demetrius,  253 

Demochares,  436 

Democles,  the  logographer,  299 

Democles,  the  orator,  460 

Democlides,  460 

Democracy,  its  influence  on  Greek 

literature,  159 
Democrates,  436I 

Democritus  of  Chios,  Ijrricpoet,  182 
Democritus,  the  philosopher,  468 
Demodocus  of  Teros,  153 
Demon,  436 
Demosthenes,  282,  403,  404  ff.,  450, 

453.  455  ff->  476 
Development   of   Greek  literattire, 

492  ff. 
Diagoras,  170 
Dialogues,  478 
Diaskeuasts,  29  ff.,  34  ff. 
Dicasogenes,  233 
Didactic  poetry,  77,  80  ff. 
Dino,  366 
Dinolochus,  237 
Diochaetes,  99 
Diodes,  253 
Diodoms,  292 
Diogenes  of  ApoUonia,  466 
Diogenes  of  Babylon,  85 
Diognetus,  92 
Diomedes,  29.  30 
Dionysius,  the  elder,  his  tragedies, 

233,  366 
Dionysius,  comedian,  292 
Dionysius,  historian,  298,  302 
Dionysodorus,  lyric  poet,  366 


Dionysodorus,  philosopher,  468 

Dionysus-Zagreus,  92 

Diophantus,  436 

Diophilus,  90 

Diotimus,  90 

Dithyramb,  128  ff.,  164,  167,   182, 

183  ff.,  234,  487 
Divisions  of  Greek  literature,  2 
Doloneia,  13 
Dorians,   their  services   to    Greek 

literature,  489 
Drama,  2 
Dromo,  293 

ECHEMBROTUS,  126 

Ecphantides,  244 

Eiresione,  76 

Elegy,  1 1 1  ff.,  147  ff. 

Empedocles,  93,  102  ff, 

Eoce,  86 

Ephialtes,  436 

Ephippus,  292 

Ephorus,  302,  325,  364  ff. 

Epic,  I 

Epic  age,  88 

Epic  lyric,  145 

Epicharmus,  166,  237  ff.,  245,   24^ 

247,  285,  4S8 
Epieichlides,  75 
Epicrates,  292 
Epicurus,  85 

"  Epideictic  "  speeches,  384 
Epigenes,  293 
Epigoni,  60 
Epigrams,  76 
Epikonkylos,  30 
Epilycus,  253 
Epimenides,  91 
Epinikia,  172,  176 
Episodes,  191 
Erinna,  143 
Eriphanis,  181 
Eriphus,  293 
Esthonians,  19 
Euboeus,  76 
Eubulides,  293 
Eubulus,  the  comedis.n,  29I 
Eubulus,  orator,  460 
Euclides,  the  archon,  74 
Euclides,  philosophei  468 
Eudemus,  299 
Euemerus,  468 
Euenus,  391 
Euetes,  244 


5o6 


INDEX. 


Euexinides,  244 

Eugamon,  59 

Eugon,  299 

Eumelus,  61,  87 

Eumolpus,  92 

Eunicus,  253 

Euphorion,  205 

Eupolis,  244,  248  ff.,  251 

Euripides'  epilogues,  15  ;  back- 
ground, 8;  136,  144,  169,  182, 
190,  191,  214,  219,  220  S.,  273, 
281,  283,  394 

Euripides,  the  younger,  23 1 

Europia,  87 

Eusebius,  69  and  n. 

Eustatliius,  59,  97 

Euthias,  461 

Euthycles,  253 

Euthydemns,  468 

Evenus  of  Paros,  155 

Evolution  of  Greek  literature,  404  ; 
of  Greek  oratory  and  of  the 
drama,  405 

Fables,  117 

Fairy  tales,  17,  1 9,  24 

Folk-lore,  81 

Forgeries,  literary,  154,  299 

Genealogical  poems,  87 
Geranomachia,  76 
Oigantomachia,  76 
Gnesippus,  233 
Gorgias,  328,  370,  385,  390,  391 

Hagnonides,  460 
Harpocration,  459  n. 
Hecatseus,  298,  300  ff.,  324.  325 
Hegemon,  writer  of  parodies,   76, 

97,  253 
Hegesander,  436 
Hegesias,  55 
Hegesinus,  87 
Hegesippus,  448  ff. 
Hegias,  59 

Hellanicus,  25,  57,  302,  325 
Heniochua,  293 
Heraclides,  comedian,  293 
Heraclides,  historian,  366 
Heraclitus,  philosopher,  84,  85,  93, 

466 
Heraclitus,  comedian,  293 
Hermesianax,  155 
Hermias,  366 


Hermippus,  155,  248 

Hermotimus,  468 

Herodas,  155 

Herodorus,  365 

Herodotus,   84,    209   and  n.,    300^ 

301,  306  ff.,  328,  335,  342,  346, 

368,  476,  488 
Herophilus,  305 
Hesiod,  77  ff.,  314 
Hiatus,  avoidance  of,  396,  410 
Hieronymus,  the  tragedian,  233 
Hieronymus,  69  and  n. 
Himeraeus,  436 
Hipparchus,  79 
Hippias,  365,  369 
Hippo,  468 
Hippocrates,  303  S. 
Hipponax,  154 
Hippys,  299 
Historical  dramas,  197 
History,  2,  297  ff. 
Hitopade9a,  19 
Homer,  3,  26  ff. ;  date  of,  48, 65  ;  th* 

tragedian,  66  ;  parodied,  97,  485 
Homeric  epigrams,  93 
Homeric  hymns,  69  ff. 
Homeric  poems,  origin,  27  ff. 
Homeridse,  51,  52  ff. 
Hyacinth  song,  1 10 
Hybrias,  170 
Hymn,  meaning  of,  69 
Hyperides,  436  ff.,  449,  452,  454 

Iambic,  113,  114 

Ibycus,  156  ff. 

Idaeus,  466 

Iliad,  background,  7,  9  ;  plot,  tt  t 
Bk.  xxiv.,  14  ;  false  conception  of, 
17  ;  age  of,  26 

Inscriptions,  42  ff. ;  at  Abu  Simbel, 
42  ff. 

Ion,  155,  218,  365 

lonians,  their  place  in  Greek  litera- 
ture, 490 

lophon,  209  n.,  218 

Isteus,  402  ff.,  407,  409 

Isocrates,  32,  160,  261,  392  ff ,  405, 
407 

Kalewala,  34 
Kapion,  126 
Kekeides,  i8s 
Kerkidas,  155 
Kydias,  170 


INDEX. 


507 


Laoritus,  461 

Lamprokles,  170 

Lasus,  92,  164,  173 

Learcbis,  181 

Leosthenes,  46I 

Lesches,  57 

Leucippus,  468 

Leuco,  253 

Libanius,  85 

Licymnius,  1 82 

Linos,  no 

Literary  classes,  2 

Little  Iliad,  57,  62,  68 

Logographers,  in  history,   93,  299, 

303  ;  in  oratory,  3 7 1,  407 
Lucian,  313 
Lycis,  253 
Lycurgus,  32 
Lycurgus,  orator,  446  ft 
Lyric  poetry,  106  fiE. 
Lysias,  383  fiE.,  403,  405,  452 
Lysippus,  252 

MfiSON,  236 

Magnes,  244  ff. 

Mamercus,  233 

Manuscripts,  492 

Margites,  75 

Matron,  76 

Melampodia,  86 

Melanippides,  170,  182 

Melanippides,  the  younger,  182 

Melesagoras,  299 

Melic,  III,  121  ff.  ;  at  court,  155 

Melic  epic,  145 

Melissus,  99 

Menander,  283,  284,  285,  325 

Menarchis,  18 1 

Menedemus,  468 

Menesaechraus,  459 

Menippus,  244 

Metacharacterisation,  74  ■. 

Metagenes,  253 

Metrodorus,  468 

Mimes,  242,  475,  478 

Mimnermus,  112,  121,487 

Minyas,  61 

Mnesimachus,  293 

Mcerocles,  436 

Morality,  in  Hesiod,  83 

Morsimus,  206 

Morychus,  233 

Musasus,  3 1  n.,  92 

Myia,  181 


Myllus,  244 
Myrtilus,  248 
Myrtis,  171,  173,  18I 
Mystis,  181 
Mythology,  26 

Naupactian  Epic,  87 
Nekuia,  the,  68 
Neophron,  219 
Nibelungenlied,  28,  33 
Nichochares,  253 
Nicomachus,  the  tragedian,  233 
Nicophron,  253 
Nicostratus,  293 
Nomes,  108,  125  and  n. 
Nostoi,  59 
Nothippus,  233 

Octopus,  19 

Odyssey,  popularity,  17  ;  unity,  17  ; 
argument,  1 7  ;  exposition,  18; 
"kernel"  of,  19;  climax,  22; 
"  original  Odyssey,"  23,  24  ;  unity 
of  design,  23  ;  age  of,  26  ;  geo- 
graphical knowledge  of,  27 

(Edipodeia,  60 

Ogres,  17 

Olen,  108 

Oligarchy,  its  influence  on  Greek 
literature,  160 

Olympic  orations,  384 

Onomacritus,  29,  30,  31  n. 

Oral  character  of  Greek  literature^ 

48  ;   transmission,  46  ;  delivery, 

49  fif.,  159,   396;    its  influence^ 
492  fif. ;  of  prose,  384 

Orators,  2 

Oratory,  367  ff.  ;  its  decline,  461  ft 

Orphelio,  293 

Orpheus,  29,  30 

Orphic  poetry,  35 

Orphic  poets,  91 

P^AN,  108 

Palinode  of  Stesichorus,  144 

PaUias,  366 

Pamphus,  108 

Pan-Hellenism,  394 

Pansetius,  32 

Panathenaea,  the,  76 

Pantacles,  233 

Panyasis,  89 

Parabasis,  278 

Parmenides,  93,  94,  99  ff.,  467 


5o8 


INDEX. 


ParoJos,  the,  190 

Parthenia,  128 

Parthenon,  7 

Pausanias,  29,  84 

Pausanias,  physician,  103 

Peisander,  88  S. 

Pergamum,  31,  32 

Pericles,  367 

"  Periodic  "  style,  376 

Perigonius,  27  n. 

Parses,  82 

Persinus,  92 

Phaedimus,  90 

Phaedo,  468 

Pherecrates,  247 

Pherecydes  of  Syros,   92,   93,  29S 

fif.,  465 
Pherecydes,  historian,  298  ff.,  324 
Philammon,  108 
Philistus,  366 
Philetserus,  293 
Philinus,  460 
Philiscus,  293 
Philocles,  206 
Philocrates,  460 
Philodemos,  74 
Philolaus,  468 
Philonides,  248 
Philosophy,  2,  465 
Philoxenus,  182 
Philyllius,  253 
Phocceis,  61 
Phocylides,  153 
Phormus,  237 
Phoronis,  87 
Photius,  25 

Phrynichus,  tragedian,  187  ff.,  192 
Phrynichus,  comedian,  251 
Phrynis,  1S2 
Pigres,  75 
Pindar,   39,   65,  72,   107,  123,   170 

ff.,  376 
Pisistratus,  commission  of,  29  ff. 
"  Plain  style,"  385 
Plato,  philosopher,   loi,   261,    266, 

275,  281,  297,  360,4682. 
Plato,  the  comedian,  244,  252 
Pollio,  325 
Polus,  468 
Polycrates,  398,  40 1 
Polycidus,  182 
Polyeuctus,  436,  449 
Polymnestus,  126 
Polyzeeus,  253 


Porphyry,  39,  324,  325 

Posidonius,  32 

Pratinas,  185  ff.,  192 

Praxigoris,  181 

PraxiUa,  181 

Proclus,  54  ff.,  61  ff.,  75,  loi,  124 

Prodicus,  61,  328,  369 

Prologue,  of  tragedy,  190,  224,  225 

Prose,  discovery  of,  81  ;  beginning 

of,  93,  297  ff, 
Protagoras,  48,  328,  368  ff. 
Psaromachia,  76 
Publication,  28 
Pythagoras,  465 
Pythangelus,  233 
Pytheas,  459 

"Reading  tragedians,"  233  ff. 

Recitation,  29  ;  of  Homer,  40,  31a 

Return,  the,  59,  60,  63,  67,  68 

Rhapsodists,  51  ff. 

Rhinthon,  237 

"  Running  style,"  376 

Sack  of  Troy,  58,  60,  62 

Sakadas,  126 

Salpe,  181 

Sannyrio,  253 

Sappho,  123,  137  ff.,  161,  163,  485 

Satire,  479 

Satyric  drama,  186 

"  School  "  of  ^schylus,  205 

Schools,  in  B.C.  500,  45 

Sciras,  237 

Separatists,  25 

Septuagint,  30  n. 

Setting  Sail,  the,  63 

Shield  of  Hercules,  86 

Sicilian  rhetoric,  369 

Silli,  97 

Siraonides  of  Amorgos,  1 17  ff.,  153 

Simonides  of  Ceos,  123,   163,  487, 

48S. 
Simonides  of  Cos,  historian,  365 
Sinon,  the,  63 
Skalds,  36 
Skephros,  1 10 
Skytale,  44  ff.,  48 
Socrates,  99,    100,   209,    212,  222, 

223  ;  and  Aristophanes,  263,  359, 

465 
Solon,  107,  112,  116,  155,  156,487 
Somadeva,  19 
Songs,  popular,  109  ff. 


INDEX. 


509 


Sopater,  237 

Sophaenetus,  365 

Sophilus,  293 

Sophists,  264,  368,  465 

Sophocles,    135,    183,    189,    207  ff., 

223,  227,  332,  335,  486. 
Sophocles,  the  younger,  218 
Sophron,  242,  475,  478 
Sotades,  293 
Sparta,    her  services  to   literature, 

487  ;  race  qualities,  4S8  ff. 
Sphettus,  436 
Spintharus,  233 
Stasinia,  190  ff. 
Stasinus,  55 

Stesichorus,  86,  123,  I43  ff.,  157 
Stesimbrotus,  365 
Stheneeus,  233 
Strattis,  253 
Stratocles,  460 

Suidas,  75  and  n.,  89,  90,  127,  307 
Susarion,  236,  244 
Swallow-song,  the,  109 
Syracuse,  166 

Tacitus,    compared    with    Thucy- 

dides,  346  ff. 
Taking  of  (Echalia,  61 
Teaching  of  Chiron,  86 
Telarchis,  181 
Teleclides,  248 
Telegonia,  59,  63,  67 
Telemachia,  18,  68 
Telesilla,  1 81 
Telestes,  182 

Terpander,  72,  IIO,  123  ff. 
Tetralogies  of  Antiphon,  374 
Thal-es,  465 

Thaletas,  123,  124,  126,  127 
Thebais,  60,  79,  90 
Themistocles,  367 
Themistogenes,  35 1 
Theochrestus,  366 
Theocritus,  242 
Theocritus,  Sophist,  366 
Theodectes,  233 
Theodoridas,  182 
Theodorus,  philosopher,  391,  468 
Theognidea,  148. 
Theognis,  his  "seal,"  46,  107,  112, 

147  ff. 
Theognis,  the  tragedian,  233 


Theophilus,  292 
Theopompus,  325,  363  ff. 
Thespis,  184  ff. 
Thestorides,  61 
Thrasymachus,  390  ff. 
Thucydidcs,  261,  313,  327  ff.,  355, 

356,  370 
Tiraarchus,  436 
Timesitheus,  233 
Timoclfs,  Oi-phic  poet,  92 
Timocles,  comedian,  29 1 
Timon,  97 
Timotheus,  293 
Tisias,  370 
Titanoinachia,  6 1 
Tragedians  and  Homer,  65  ff. 
Tragedy,  129,  183  ff. 
Tragic  turn,  the,  129 
Transformation,  24 
Trilogy,  196,  205,  478 
Trojan  table,  63 
Tynnichus,  170 
Tyranny,    its   influence    on   Greek 

literature,  159 
Tyrtaeus,  107,  112,  116,  126 
Tzetzes,  30,  459  n. 

Vedas,  the,  36,  128 

Verse,  practical  value  of,  81 

Virgil,  77 

Wedding  of  Keyx,  86 

Wolf,  27  ff. 

Women,  their  position,  120,  128 

Writing,  28  ;  origin,  &c.,  41  ff. ;  is 
Homer,  42  ;  date  of,  in  Greece^ 
43  ;  materials  for,  46,  491 

Xanthus,  302,  324 

Xenarchus,  293 

Xenocles,  219 

Xenocritus,  126 

Xenodamos,  126 

Xenomedes,  299 

Xenon,  25 

Xenophanes,  84,  85,  93,  96  ff. 

Xenophon,  341,  346,  348  ff.,  474 

Zeno,  48,  75,  85,  99,  466  ff. 
Zenodotus,  30  n. 
Zoilus,  366,  398,  401  ff. 
Zopyrus,  29,  30,  90 


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